Inexpensive way for papers to provide reporters 'Net access
Using the Internet for serious news research can seem well out of reach to reporters at small and mid-sized newspapers like the Winston-Salem (N.C.) Journal.
The direct, high-speed Internet connections that are frequently demonstrated at computer-assisted journalism conferences can cost nearly $20,000 a year -- after laying out $11,000 or so in start-up expenses.
It's unlikely, at best, that publishers at many smaller newspapers would approve such an expense.
But there is a way to get nearly the same Internet research capabilities for $20 to $40 a month using an ordinary phone line and a stand-alone PC, with start-up expenses as low as $100.
Even better, you can customize this setup for your newsroom, greatly simplifying staff training.
At the Winston-Salem Journal, a morning paper of 91,000 circulation, we recently built this sort of "front-end for the Internet" to improve our news research and reporting.
It was designed specifically for the Internet research that we do in Winston-Salem, and has extensive custom-written help files so news staffers with little or no Internet experience can use it.
The introductory screen is shown above.
Clicking on the word "Government" calls up the screen at the top of this page.
Another click on the words "General Assembly" automatically connects users to the computers at the North Carolina Legislature, where the full text of state bills is available on-line.
As part of our customization, we have a screen containing all of the state legislators' e-mail addresses. This lets reporters call up an e-mail form and then send a message to a legislator with a click of the mouse.
There is also a screen that contains links to computer files at the legislature that list bills affecting each of the counties in our circulation area. This makes it quick and easy to do a weekly check to see if we have missed any newly introduced bills that would affect our part of the state.
The government screen scrolls down, listing federal government Internet sites. It includes brief descriptions of these computer systems, as well as any instructions needed to use them. Connecting to these sites takes just a click of the mouse.
And my favorite screen is shown below, left.
The "Internet Research" section of the Journal's Internet pages contains links to the Internet search tools and directories that I use regularly in my work. The "Help" boxes are automatic links to the built-in help screens.
This kind of Internet access uses a type of dial-up Internet account called point-to-point protocol (PPP) and custom-written documents in the hypertext markup language (HTML). It is slower than a direct, high-speed connection.
But it runs only one-way -- so, while reporters and news researchers can go out on the Internet to do research and reporting, outsiders can't connect to the Journal's computers from elsewhere on the Internet.
It's easy to set up and maintain -- and best of all, it's dirt cheap.
Here's what you need to build this sort of custom "front-end" for the Internet:
Hardware: A stand-alone Windows PC, preferably at least a '486-based system, or virtually any Macintosh system running at least System 7 and 8mb of RAM, with a 14.4 Kbps (or faster) modem and an ordinary Touch-Tone telephone line.
Internet account: Get a PPP or serial line interface protocol (SLIP) account from a commercial Internet access company or university. Go with the PPP account if you have a choice. These typically cost $20 to $40 a month for 40 to 50 hours of connect time. There may also be a setup fee of about $50.
To find a local Internet access company, browse through the ads in your local computer newspaper or newsletter (these days, even the Yellow Pages in some cities will have a listing). Internet access is a booming business now, so almost certainly you'll find several of these companies in your area.
There are also national Internet access companies, such as Netcom, that offer accounts through 800 numbers. They advertise in most of the national computer magazines.
Network software: You will need software to interpret the language of the Internet (called TCP/IP) into something that a PC or Mac can understand. This software also establishes and maintains the Internet connection.
Fortunately, there are lots of ways to get this software. Here are a few:
The easiest solution is to buy a commercial TCP/IP package, such as NetManage Inc.'s Internet Chameleon for Windows or Spry Inc.'s Internet In a Box. These packages cost $100 to $200, but are simple to install and are quite robust.
Operating systems such as IBM's OS/2 Warp, Apple's System 7.5 and Microsoft's Windows 95 (if it is ever released) have this Internet software built in.
The cheapest route is to purchase one of the numerous Internet books that include low-end SLIP/PPP software. Several books, for example, contain a stripped-down version of NetManage's Internet Chameleon package called the Chameleon Sampler. The Mac books have MacTCP (you need at least version 2.0.4).
A well-regarded shareware product for Windows called Trumpet Winsock is available on the Internet at the address ftp://ftp.utas.edu.au/pc/trumpet/winsock directory. The registration fee is $20.
Finally, many commercial SLIP/PPP Internet access companies offer network software as part of their setup fee. Be sure to ask about this.
Note that you will have to configure the network software to work with your PPP or SLIP account. This is essentially a fill-in-the-blank process. You will get a form from your Internet access company listing your Internet address and other information about your SLIP/PPP account.
Enter this information into the network software. (Caution -- this may be the most daunting part of this exercise.)
Client software: Once you have the TCP/IP network software in place, you can run client Internet software on your computer. This software connects with server computers elsewhere on the Internet and transmits commands to the server systems.
The most vital piece of client software is a World-Wide Web browser program, such as Netscape Navigator or NCSA Mosaic. These programs display hypertext markup language (HTML) documents as formatted pages on your computer screen and manage the connections between hypertext documents across the Internet.
In other words, they let you click on a phrase like "U.S. House of Representatives" in a hypertext document and automatically connect to the House's computer system.
Netscape Navigator is available on the Internet at the address ftp://ftp.mcom.com/pub/netscape . The software is free for educational use and costs $39 for individual or commercial use.
Mosaic is available on the Internet at the address ftp://ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Mosaic. It also is free. (There are 12 browsers available for various computer platforms, though it appears that more than 80 percent of all 'Net surfers use Netscape or Mosaic.)
One of the cool things about World-Wide Web browser programs is that when they encounter a data file on the Internet, they can identify its format and immediately start an appropriate viewer program running. That means you can hear a sound clip, watch a video or view a picture automatically.
To do this, however, you need to have suitable viewer programs installed on your computer. A couple of my favorite viewer programs are WinPlayAny, which can play many common sound file formats, and Lview, which can display various types of pictures.
Both of these programs -- and several other excellent viewer programs -- are available on the Internet at ftp://ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Mosaic/windows/viewers.
Note that you will need to tell your World-Wide Web browser program which types of files should start the viewer programs running. This is almost automatic with Netscape Navigator. But with Mosaic, you will have to edit a setup file called mosaic.ini. Fortunately, Mosaic's instructions cover this pretty well.
Congratulations! All of the necessary software is installed and configured. (Whew!) Now for the fun part: writing your own custom hypertext documents for your newsroom.
To do this, you will need to learn the basics of the hypertext markup language. Yes, it's a programming language, but it's so simple that you can learn it in a weekend and look like a computer wizard.
Here's a simple hypertext markup language document:
<HTML> <HEAD> <TITLE>My Home Page</TITLE> </HEAD> <BODY><H1>My Home Page</H1> <HR>
<UL> <LI>This is an Internet World-Wide Web link to the
<A HREF="http://www.house.gov">U.S. House of Representatives</A>. <LI>This is a link to <A HREF="http://law.cornell.edu/supct/">U.S. Supreme Court Rulings</A> from Cornell University. <LI>This is a link to <A HREF="http://c.gp.cs.cmu.edu:5103/prog/ webster/">Webster's Dictionary</A> on-line. </UL> </BODY> </HTML>
Most of the commands in this document are instructions to format the page display. For example, <H1>My Home Page</H1> tells the World-Wide Web browser program to display the words "My Home Page" as a large headline.
The other important commands are called anchors. They point to sites on the Internet using a type of Internet address called Uniform Resource Locators (URLs).
For example, the command
<A HREF="http://www.house.gov">U.S. House of Representatives</A> tells the World Wide Web browser program to display the words "U.S. House of Representatives" on the screen and establish a link from those words to the House computers, which are located on the Internet at the address http://www.house.gov.
Save the hypertext document on your computer's hard drive with a name like "homepage.htm" and configure your World-Wide Web browser program to use this document as your "home page." The home page is the first place that the browser program goes on the Internet when you start the program.
Important: You will have to use a special command to tell your World-Wide Web browser program to look on your computer for the home page. For example, if the home page document is called homepage.htm and is in the c:/netscape/files directory, the command is file:///c:/netscape/files/homepage.htm (some browsers use the command file://localhost/c:/netscape/files/homepage.htm).
Macintosh users have a special problem: Since spaces can be embedded into Mac disk and file names, how do you indicate that? Tell the computer about the space by using hexidecimal.
If your disk drive is called Macintosh HD and your folder is called World-Wide Web, replace those spaces with %20, so that the home page directory command would look like this: file:///Macintosh%20HD/World-Wide%20Web/homepage.HTML.
This file also could be stored on a server if you wanted; just indicate the full file name for the server as above.
You're done!
To use your brand-new, custom-written home page, run the network software and establish the PPP or SLIP Internet connection. Then start the World-Wide Web browser program. The next page shows what the screen will look like using the sample hypertext document listed earlier in this article.
Just click on the words "Webster's Dictionary" to connect to an electronic version of the dictionary on the Internet.
To track down Internet sites that are useful in your newsroom, I'd suggest finding the Internet address for your local university and explore its public files. It likely will have a section called Internet Resources or Cool Links that contains connections to Internet sites of interest to your community.
When you find an Internet site relevant to your news coverage, use the bookmark or hotlist feature of your World-Wide Web browser to record the address. Then you can type the addresses into your custom-written hypertext documents.
Another strategy is to browse some of the Internet directories, such as the Yahoo site at the address http://www.yahoo.com, or the Whole Internet Catalog at http://nearnet.gnn.com/wic/newrescat.toc.html.
All of this is a lot of work for one person, but it makes the Internet readily accessible to the rest of the newsroom. And as you find new and useful sites on the Internet, it is a simple matter to write their addresses into your home page.
What's more, it is so much fun that you'll find yourself 'Net surfing for all-too-many hours!
-- Christopher Ryan
From THE COLE PAPERS, May 1995, Copyright © 1995, All Rights Reserved.
