Publisher's Synopsis
Focusing on the news - the way it is written and the forms it takes - this book examines the relation between the content of public information and the potential effect of new technology on the degree and type of information available in the public forum. Tom Koch uses examples to demonstrate the degree to which news information can be changed through the efficient and cost-effective application of online bibliographic resources by personal computers.;Koch argues that new, computer-based technologies will revolutionize news and public information by fundamentally altering the relation between writer and news subject. He shows how electronic databases, by making large amounts of data on virtually every subject available to the news writer or editor, have changed the equation which has defined news since at least the 1920s. To make clear the degree to which these systems will transform news, the author demonstrates how online resources can be used efficiently and inexpensively by generalists. Practical issues of online use are presented within the context of both the parameters of contemporary journalism and the means by which these technologies address its limits.;Two separate chapters, one describing search technologies and the other reviewing database organization, are written to be of practical value to both neophyte and journeyman news and public information writers alike. Using examples from his own and others' work, Koch demonstrates ways to carry out simple and inexpensive searches. His book is especially aimed at the news or research librarian, reporter and the public information or public relations writer.
