The Pulitzer Prize committee has decided to recognize that there might be journalism worthy of an award happening online. Before Net journalists start burning CD-ROMs with their best work, though, they need to consider this catch: Only online presentations from print newspapers will be considered.
Prize administrator Seymour Topping says that papers seeking the public-service prize based on work published in 1998 will be allowed to submit a single CD-ROM carrying the online contents.
"It's not as dramatic, I am sure, as some who would advocate recognition of online journalism would hope for, but I think all of us on the board think that it's significant," Geneva Overholser, chair of this year's Pulitzer board and ombudsman at The Washington Post, told the Associated Press.
She characterized the move as a first step toward recognizing online journalism, and observed of the medium: "It's a kind of wild and woolly world. It's very much in formulation."
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But, officer, I was downloading the Cops site: Giving Comdex that World's Fair flair, IBM, along with Delco, Netscape, and Sun, unveiled its official pace car of the information revolution: a fully networked sedan. The non-production car is equipped with satellite-linked Net access, voice-recognition and voice-synthesis software to keep the driver's eyes free, and heads-up displays for navigation and vehicle-status reports. IBM promises that the Network Vehicles will be available within four years, with add-on elements for existing cars on sale by late 1999. The race is on, however, with Mercedes, which showed off its own Net-mobile last month at the Tokyo Auto Show. (18.Nov.97)
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Every conceivable space department: A Texas company will begin showing full-motion video ads on 165 ATM screens in Southern California this month. The four-month pilot program from EDS will begin with 15-second spots for Fox Searchlight and Nissan screened during the "please wait" periods on MPEG-enabled cash machines located in San Diego 7-Eleven stores. No word on whether a bigger deposit gets you a better ad. (18.Nov.97)
