I am not a journalist. Or am I? Keep that question in mind as you read through this.

Dave attended BlogWorld Expo this year, and one of the things he noted is that Leo Laporte stated in so many words that new media will be the new standard in journalism soon enough.

"New Media" is a very overhyped term, but is the only one that accurately defines the difference between traditional news outlets and the newer ways of getting news and events. In other words, it’s the difference between print (old) and internet (new).

As a writer for PCMech, I make my best effort to follow the tenets of traditional journalism. In that vein, reports are to be as factually accurate as possible, opinions (editorials) are to foster meaningful discussion, humor is to be inoffensive to the reading audience, and so on.

A journalist in strict definition is, "a writer for newspapers and magazines." I don’t think that definition accurately applies any longer. It should be changed to, "a writer for media outlets", meaning print and/or internet. If a traditional journalist has an online column or authors one exclusively but used to have a print column, does that mean a journalist doesn’t classify as one any longer? I don’t think so.

Definitions aside, something that I’ve always been aware of is that for whatever I write here, I’m responsible for it. This is another tenet of journalism. You, the reader, expect that whatever is written here is true, be it a report, documentation or otherwise. With the increased readership to PCMech as well as a ton of other web sites, that responsibility is something to be taken seriously.

Authors of blogs with wide readership understand this responsibility. We understand it to the tune of, "Wow, there’s a lot of people reading what I write, so I’d better not steer them wrong."

What makes New Media differ from Old Media the most?

1. Instant delivery.

You don’t go to the store and buy what you read here. It’s delivered instantly any time you want, for free, simply by typing in the web address.

2. Two-way communication.

Old Media has always hated this. The old way was the (in)famous "Letters to the Editor" section of whatever publication you were reading. Out of the hundreds of letters received, only a scant few would ever appear in print. The rest were all tossed and would never see the light of day.

New Media has reader discussion right on the article itself, and if you want to contribute, you can do so easily.

The reason I say Old Media hates two-way communication is because they’ve never been able to handle it properly. As most know, Old Media was pulled into the internet kicking and screaming all the way. They labeled it as simply a fad that would go away. It didn’t. Instead it steamrolled right over them and they were forced to go online. But they still don’t know how to handle two-way communication and struggle with it consistently. I don’t believe this is going to change any time soon.

3. Edge.

Traditional journalism is not edgy and is best described as sober – almost to a fault. It’s bland reading that has no bite whatsoever. In other words, boring.

Edge in this context is not meant to imply gimmicky, sell-your-soul type of garbage. Rather it means that the author has to be willing to (gasp!) have an opinion and stick by it. With Old Media this is almost nonexistent, hence the blandness.

New Media more or less dictates, "It’s OK to have an opinion. Do it."

4. A chance for others to write and contribute their voice.

Something that everybody takes for granted is the ability to link web pages. At any time, you could start up your own blog for free (Windows Live Spaces, LiveJournal, Blogger, WordPress, TypePad, etc.), write up your own article and link back to this one as a reference. Or maybe you want to post a rebuttal article against this one. Or whatever. It doesn’t matter what it is. What matters is that you can do it. You can’t do that with print because you don’t have the circulation. With internet, your circulation is the world.

Is Old Media scared?

Yes, and has been for a while now. Print media readership has been dropping like a brick. All of them missed the boat with internet, and even though they’re all online now, they’re still not doing it right. New Media continues on its path of ushering in a new era of journalism.

I want to make clear that I do not want print media to go away. Newspapers and magazine are established and well-respected sources of news and information. I do not wish even for a second that they vanish into obscurity, as it would be very sad if that happened.

What Old Media needs to do is to stop treating New Media as "something we deal with only because we have to." Instead of rowing against the stream they should simply go with it. Otherwise they will be stomped out. Yes, stomped.

Are internet-only writers journalists?

The only person qualified to answer this question is you.

Do you feel that you get the same level of news and information online as you do with print?

Do you consider online content to have inferior, on par, or superior quality compared to print?

Does personality (with edge mentioned above) in content matter to you, or just the facts and only the facts?

If we added a comics section and a daily crossword puzzle, would PCMech be a "tech newspaper?"

Interesting questions, to be sure.

There are many of us (myself included) who remember the days when dial-up was the only way to get online, and there were two types of ISPs, the Corporate and the Mom n’ Pop.

A few examples from when I was living in Connecticut:

The locals were NECAnet and Cyberzone. The corporates were SNET and TIAC. All of them cost about the same price per month.

(As a small side note before continuing, CompuServe is officially no more. For those interested in ISP history, that’s a good read.)

The links to the ISPs above are all from The Internet Archive because not a single one of them exists any longer. Each was bought out/acquired, shuffled around a few times and either dissolved or merged into a larger ISPs customer base.

I’m sure more than a few of you out there can name off at least three ISPs from the late 1990s/early 2000s that are no more.

As to the question of whether a true Mom n’ Pop ISP still exists, the answer is yes, they do. And wow, did I find a doozy for my example.

BEHOLD… Spitfire Communications

• We’re greeted with a home page that has 3 different fonts and looks like it was designed in 1997. The title of the page is "Home". That’s it.
• The Downloads page lists software that is literally 10 or more years old. You can download AIM 5.1! Or ICQ 2000b!
• On the How Do I? page, every link for modem help is dead.
• Want to pay a bill online? You can’t. The Pay Online page links to a site that’s dead.

If you thought your ISP was behind the times.. well.. I dare you to find one more antiquated than Spitfire.

I’m sure Spitfire is a fine dial-up ISP, but you can’t deny the dinosaur-era site design and plethora of dead links.

This, unfortunately, is how most Mom n’ Pop ISPs are today. Woefully behind the times. Web sites antiquated beyond belief. And they probably accept payments in doubloons for all I know.

Do you use a Mom n’ Pop ISP or know someone that does?

Tell us your tale.