Sure, these are all valid news stories and I'm sure they'll get tons of coverage today.

But as Editor of a weekly, the story I'd have most liked to have received for this edition, and the one I believe actually has "legs" and is valid to our international focus -- in short, the BIG STORY -- is that there are A MILLION troops facing each other on the border of Indian and Pakistan right now. (Troop estimate taken from this Associated Press story in the New York Times.) If one is objective, then any endeavor involving a million people has to be a Big Story.

Indian and Pakistan are both members of the so-called Nuclear Club and hostilities here go back to 1947. (Talk about legs!) Finally, India's Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee is saying it is time to fight "the decisive battle..." over the issue of Kashmir. For a magazine with an international focus, and I'd argue this is true for any news organ, that story should be on the top of the list for consideration and resources.

Politcal sabre-rattling aside, there seems to be enough tension on the border between these two countries in recent weeks to suppose that this is the next potential war zone to be reported. Barring some serious international intervention -- as Indian has been clear it feels slighted by the "international community" for months now -- war is imminent.

Seldom do you find a commentary on any medium that stresses the fact that it is India which is the world's largest democracy. (Pakistani strongman Musharraf meanwhile has publicly stated that it has never entered his head that the Pakistani people should have a popular vote.) Despite the pro-democracy statements of the "West," Indian appears to be justified in its sense of being ideologically slighted. This latter statement does not negate the sectarian wrongs committed in this imbroglio on the Indian side, nor justify Hindi chauvinism, it simply underscores that if war does develop between these two countries there will be more than enough blame to spread around.

For Internet/WWW journalism to work our first responsibility is to accept the "World Wide" in that WWW. We are not your local news organ, even if you are in the United States. ONLY covering Amerocentric news is dead wrong for this medium and misses the mark of its potential.

You certainly don't see (most) of the Web publications who deal with technology sticking to the United States alone, if they are worth their salt. Technology is international in scope, use and impact. So is the news. If we are going to make the Internet work for us as journalists and for our readerships, we have to treat the news the same way.

Where Do People Get Their News?

Most print-side journalists considered the Web as trivial and immature.

They were partially right.

Immature most Web journalism was. But not trivial. After the shake-out in 1999 - 2000, those sites remaining the Web news business proved that they had earned their stripes, if by no other metric than sustained readership-loyalty. Since then, the survivors have grown in both credibility and clout.

What the naysayers could not foresee was how organs like Interfax would only have one way to reach the outside world with the news of the real revolution in what was then the Soviet Union, Yeltsin at the Russian White House declaring a new era -- no matter what we might think of Yeltsin today -- or how other Eastern European organizations with sites, like B92, would become part of the journalistic landscape we have today.

The pollsters and pundits could not foresee a day when most people with desktop computers , let alone hand-held devices including cell phones, would tell them that the Web was a new primary source for their news and information.

During every significant and newsworthy event since the middle 1990s, the Web has been a source of increasingly valued information. It's impact has increased exponentially while other news media have worked to re-create themselves in its image -- for both good and ill. From the newsrooms of major print publications to the man on the street, getting information from the Web has become more valid than it was even five years ago.

That as only upped the ante for those of us involved in Web journalism. It has made the central point of my thesis, espousing critical thinking and ethical practices , that much more important.

Those of us involved in this medium during its infancy saw today's reality as an inevitability. This latest advance held the promise of being as significant for change as the introduction of in-door plumbing and telephones into our lives. But that was hard to see through the prism of life in, say, 1993.

Overcoming Myths

Just as "What hath God wrought?" lacked the elegance and sophistication of "Hi, Mom! It's Billy!" -- and all that followed -- trying to create the new "language" of Web-ese (teehee-hee, BRB) was adolescent and (deservedly) destined for the historical dustbin.

Good riddance.

There's a reason that we employ the same language or parlance on the telephone as we do face-to-face. We have a consensual agreement about the meaning of terms. It works.

As the Web has matured, the same agreement-by-consent has taken place. (Notwithstanding the consensus that "Emoticons" still work in a visual medium where we don't have the benefit of connotation. Though I shall comment that the longer you and your interlocutor have been on the Web, the fewer visual stimuli you'll find yourselves employing.)

The second myth we needed to overcome was that we had a mandate, yea, a need to prove that a "paradigm shift" had taken place. What a load of hog-wash that was!

News is still news, years later. Each language continues to have its own nuances and idiomatic quirks. The only thing that has happened is that the mode of communication has moved from a paper page to a monitor (whose resolution is inferior to that which proceeded it. Paper = (average) 330 dots per inch. Computer monitors = (average) 92 dots per inch. Only the delivery is faster.)

But the statements in this section of the essay represent a digression from our central consideration, even if justified as an historical Reality Check.

Making It Work

Still considering yourself as dumb as the next person about most things, but also still needing to make it work (read: "pay the bills", in most cases) you say "Thank you! Thank you! Yes, I am. I am honored by the recognition."

This takes nothing from the fact that you have been laboring in the field for years -- often unappreciated, as far as you are concerned.

But, and more to our point, it then hits you that you have the chance to finally say why you keep doing it and what is honorable and worthy about your choice.

IF you are very lucky indeed, you will produce a piece of journalism -- at that moment -- that speaks to the highest aspirations of your craft and inspires others to pick up the torch.

At the end of the day, that is something.

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