Cut Yourself Off

Every day I ask myself where the Internet is going. Picture me holding my hands over my eyes and crumpling my mouth in horror as I ponder a Web teeming with nasty, anonymous commenters, specious user-generated content and RSS feeds up the wazoo. My only consolation is that it is possible to ignore the frightful aspects of the Web—social network upon social network; ad-ridden music lyric resources; fake Bank of America e-mails; videos of people sitting around—and look for only the best. It does exist. Every day of work at findingDulcinea is a quest for that site that no one knows about; that video that will bring tears to your eyes; that blogger who may be the coolest culture vulture you’ve ever “met.” And for even the most übermodern Web ventures—your Meebos, Bebos, Twitters and Revvrs—there's a findingDulcinea guide for that.

Roger Cohen, longtime foreign correspondent from London, recently started a new column in The New York Times. He also has a blog called Passages on the International Herald Tribune site. In his June 16 column, "In Praise of Being Cut Off," Cohen talks about field journalism, an increasingly passé mode of reportage that gets its kicks from being out in the technological wilderness with only a telex machine for company:

I worry about stories dying, replaced by stuff. Content for platforms does not a story make. Today, you arrive anywhere and surf the Net. Being “always on” is being always off, to something.

British journalistic output remains incredibly thorough and utilitarian; sensitive to what is real, as distinct from what is reality; from what is far away, as opposed to what is “meta.” Certainly, Britain still has "Big Brother," Twitter, tabloids and texting. But I never feel left out reading British news sources: I feel smarter. It’s so easy to feel left out on the Web. It’s even easier to feel dumb.   

Perhaps I'm actually admiring the baby boomers here, not just the English:  I mean those for whom the Internet is a professional necessity, but one with spiritually negligible value. These journalists prefer to be out in the field, and when asked to post their story to the Web, say, “Oh, all right, then, but I haven’t got a clue how to get it up there.” For journalists like Cohen, clever tools, sharing capabilities, RSS feeds and such may bring more readers, but they won’t confer spiritual value. These Webby gadgets may actually be more distracting than useful. Readers should be able to find online all the purity, adventure and knowledge they find in a documentary film, newspaper or magazine. Everything else is, as Cohen puts it, just “stuff.”

U.S. columnists may be embracing the fast-paced, casual structure of the Web because they think this is what we want. I can only hope that the impending election is what’s making everyone so feverish, but I doubt it. Some online news portals believe they have to ride the wave of social networking and the emotional nakedness of blogging to keep their page views up. If this is true, it’s unfortunate. All news really needs is to get out more, and take us along.

Liz Colville
Senior Writer