[938] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Privitization is the issue today
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Joe Abernathy)
Thu Jul 11 16:50:18 1991
Date: Thu, 11 Jul 91 15:43:12 CDT
From: edtjda@magic322.chron.com (Joe Abernathy)
To: com-priv@psi.com
Cc: nren-discuss@psi.com
It's good to know the alt.sex fanatics still care. But a year after the fact,
I reread our article and can't imagine how the subject could have been
approached more evenly. I don't know what world Stan Barber lives in, but here
in the real world, that report was an examination of a fascinating development
in the education community. There were huge sites on the net that took the
story in stride without a moment's pause, because they'd taken seriously the
acceptable use policies attached to their federal money.
Let me ask a rhetorical question: What did the net.community expect would
happen when a newspaper eventually got a copy of something like Cindy's
Torment, with "Baylor University" and "Southern Methodist University" splashed
across the top of the page? Cindy was the actual catalyst, it might interest
you to know, and once she had been turned loose in the newsroom there was no
stopping her.
I don't twist words, I didn't twist words. I delivered a timely, mostly
accurate story in the face of a universally hostile climate. Everyone
interviewed had the chance to address the issues head-on and defuse the
situation, but chose not to do so, with the exception of Mitch Kapor. In
retrospect, that's the one thing I would do differently, press more at
the real issues. But I was intimidated then of my sources and an over-
whelmingly complex subject.
Today, that's not the case. There's not a better qualified journalist
than me to address the national policy issues surrounding this network and
its future. I would submit that those issues center on commercialization,
privitization and the advisability of building a gigabit network, this
grand "data superhighway."
ANS is engendering an enormous amount of opposition among the people
with whom I've talked recently, and with that much smoke it's easy to
guess there's a fire.
I'm anxious to address these important issues, in a thoughtful and
completely fair way. But I do need your help.
Thanks!
Joe Abernathy
(800) 735-3820
edtjda@chron.com
