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Following the conflict

More and more people are relying on the Internet for their news, and that goes double for times of war.

More and more people are relying on the Internet for their news, and that goes double for times of war. The benefits are obvious:

• Coverage is in real-time, updated frequently;

• The news is tangible and timely – the who, what, where, when, and how, backed by the latest data. Newspaper coverage is generally a day old, and television coverage is linear, limited to what is taking place right now. If the data isn’t in, that results in endless chatter and speculation on what might be happening. By way of comparison, the Internet does not report on just one story at a time, but provides a collection of different stories which allows browsers to pick and choose, and go back to the ones they are interested in.

• The news is truly multimedia, featuring video and audio news, as well as a variety of different kinds of written reports.

• Online news comes from a variety of different sources and vantage points, rather than the correspondents of any one newspaper group or network.

• It’s fast. You don’t have to wait for news items to appear, which means the information is there when you want it.

As a result of the convenience of the Web, most news sites have been experiencing double or triple the number of visitors since the bombing began on March 19. Although the war is wrapping up quickly, news sites are expecting numbers to stay high through the aftermath.

Here is a list of interesting news Web sites to check out.

Straight News

Visit these sites for the nitty-gritty, all-killer-no-filler, nuts and bolts news of the war.

http://news.google.com/

Just as Google conquered the search engine market, they also seem to be making pretty good headway in the news department with a site that catalogues news stories filed from around the world, from sources as diverse in nature as USA Today and the Arab News.

It’s also updated around the clock, and although the stories come from a variety of different news organizations, they’re organized into different subjects.

www.cnn.com

The last Gulf War made CNN what it is, and although the network has lost ground lately to the more tabloid and conservative Fox News, they are poised to reclaim their market share in this conflict with more reporters on the ground and embedded with U.S. forces than any other network.

Although the over the top Hollywood graphics and endless speculation by so-called experts can be irritating at times, CNN always comes through in the clutch when something goes down.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/

Even in Canada, most of our world news comes with a U.S. filter on it. Not so with the BBC, which has done an admirable job in the past presenting a balanced, more worldly perspective on events.

And while most Americans probably believe that there is just one war going on, the BBC reports on conflicts all over the globe. Fighting in Nigeria? Mass arrests and reports of torture in Zimbabwe? These stories were buried in North American news.

Opinion

Whether you accept them or reject them, the opinions of others force us to have opinions of our own, and to be ready to back them up. Visit these sites to see what the pundits are saying:

www.nytimes.com / www.washingtonpost.com

The New York Times and Washington Post editorial/Op-Ed pages post some of the most influential and widely read opinion pieces in the world, targeting an audience that is both knowledgeable and powerful. Presidents, generals, elected representatives, and other important men and women read these two publications almost religiously.

The opinions generally reflect the conservative viewpoint – not a rarity in today’s world, but they do it at a high enough level to be considered the proxy voice of the right wing.

www.commondreams.org

Common Dreams is a liberal collection of editorial opinions from various publications. There is also a good deal of original content and miscellaneous information such as transcripts of speeches by various politicians and civil rights leaders and photo essays.

One thing that is astounding about Common Dreams is the impressive and eclectic collection of writers and left wing idealogues appearing on the site – Norman Mailer, Michael Moore, Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein, Bill Maher, Kurt Vonnegut, Ariana Huffington, former President Jimmy Carter, former General Norman Schwarzkopf, Robert Fisk, Ralph Nader, Jesse Jackson, and Senator Robert Byrd, to name just a few. To dismiss this page as a rabble of leftists and limousine liberals is to dismiss some of the greatest intellectuals in the world.

Their list of source publications is also printed along the left side of the Home Page if you have any doubts.

Diversion

Although it’s important to be informed, there comes a time when the news can be too heart-breaking to turn the page. I’m not advocating that we take the ostrich’s way out and bury our heads in the sand, but if you don’t temper the bad with a little good, things like this war can pollute you.

If the war news seems like a little too much sometimes, my advice is to check out these sites:

www.theonion.com

The Onion is the world’s finest satire newspaper. It’s sharp, witty, topical, and it works on so many levels that it’s scary.

www.fark.com

Drew Curtis’ Fark is a collection of oddball stories from the media, presented in a humorous light. It’s hard to explain what Fark actually does, but whatever it is, it’s extremely well done.