THE MEDIA BUSINESS;Publishers and Netscape Plan News Network
Date: 13 February 1996
By John Markoff
John Markoff
The Netscape Communications Corporation and a group of news organizations, including Reuters, ESPN and The Los Angeles Times, plan to announce Tuesday an Internet news network that can be displayed automatically in the screen-saver software of a personal computer. The system, which runs on software created by Pointcast Inc., will permit a personal computer user connected to the Internet to receive a personalized newspaper that would be updated at regular intervals. The system takes the idea of an on-line newspaper a step beyond news sites found on the World Wide Web. Such sites require an Internet user to connect manually to a particular Web page to view news articles.
Full Article
POLITICS: ON TELEVISION;Calling Results of Caucuses Before They Even Begin
Date: 13 February 1996
By David Stout
David Stout
In a striking confluence of old-fashioned democracy and computer-age data gathering, Senator Bob Dole was declared the winner of the Iowa caucuses last night, five minutes before they began. The Kansas Republican was called the winner at 6:55 P.M. by Voter News Service, a consortium of the three big television broadcasting networks, CNN and The Associated Press. The prediction was based on polling of about 3,800 Iowans as they entered the caucuses, Voter News Service officials said last night.
Full Article
MEDIA: PRESS;Some distinguished journalists believe newsroom cynicism is hurting the country.
Date: 12 February 1996
By Iver Peterson
Iver Peterson
HAS journalistic cynicism gone too far? For years, reporters have worn their skepticism about the official version of events not only as a badge of their profession, but as a shield consciously deployed to keep the public from being snookered. Over the years, after the Vietnam War, Watergate and numerous scandals, that skepticism perhaps congealed into a hardened cynicism, but its function remained the same. Being cynical amounted to being smart.
Full Article
New Jersey Daily Briefing;Fight to Open Death Records
Date: 12 February 1996
By Terry Pristin
Terry Pristin
When 5-year-old Timothy Wiltsey disappeared in 1991, his mother, Michelle Lodzinksi, of South Amboy, said her son had vanished at a carnival in Sayreville. Her account was not corroborated, and when Timothy's skull was found nearly a year later in a vast marsh in Edison, the mystery intensified. An East Brunswick newspaper, now known as The Home News and Tribune, tried to find out how Timothy had died, but the State Department of Health cited confidentiality restrictions imposed by the AIDS Assistance Act. Tomorrow, the New Jersey Supreme Court will hear arguments as to whether the law that prevents health officials from disclosing to anyone but family members that a person died of AIDS should be applied to all death certificates.
Full Article
Essay;Chunnel Vision
Date: 12 February 1996
By William Safire
William Safire
Zipping along at 186 m.p.h. from Paris to London, traveling between those capitals in the same three hours as the Metroliner takes to go from New York to Washington, even a neo-Luddite has to salute the progress of technology. In that mood, I wonder about fellow-travelers on the info-highway: with waves of data laptopping our shores, many pre-boomers are disquieted. We worry that all this multimedia information on internets and from satellites will engulf us in some tsunami and leave us high and dry.
Full Article
Who's Avoiding Living-Room Politics?
Date: 13 February 1996
To the Editor: You postulate (front page, Feb. 11) that mass media political campaigns are replacing traditional "living room discussions" between the candidates and the people in the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary.
Full Article
COMPANY NEWS
Date: 13 February 1996
SWISS REINSURANCE CO., Zurich, will buy one million common shares of Enhance Financial Services Group Inc., a New York-based reinsurance company, for $24.4 million.
Full Article
POLITICS: NEWS ANALYSIS;Victory Laced With Caution
Date: 13 February 1996
By R. W. Apple Jr
R. Apple
In the quarter-century since George McGovern gained a bit of visibility by finishing a surprisingly close second in this state's nominating caucuses, then little known, Iowa's political voice has grown immeasurably louder. But the message is difficult to understand and often misunderstood. For all the commotion that surrounds the caucuses -- the millions of dollars and thousands of hours expended by the candidates, the blizzard of television commercials, the invasion of this civilized and amiable state by enough journalists to cover a fair-sized war -- they remain a preliminary. They are Act I, Scene 1 of the yearlong drama of electing a President, not its climax.
Full Article