Research students are always encouraged to publish their findings, being told that unpublished work is simply 'personal opinions' and not 'contribution to knowledge'. Since I had some primitive idea about formalities that an article has to pass through from author's desk to press column, I always thought that novel hi-tech publishing systems available to anybody for free, will not be able to dominate the authenticity of published material that go through traditional formality. As a matter of fact it's true for scientific/academic publications, but I had underestimated the impact of "news-bombardment" on public... Publishers have warned (ref) against digital distribution of hoax and gossips, mainly via mobile phones, saying that it will influence the press circulation. This affects financial aspect of journalism, possibly forcing them toward cheap contents that attract eyes, not minds (a point that Italian students mentioned in the above-linked report have correctly criticized). In countries like Iran, where professional journalism is jeopardized by many other factors as well, this sort of media (weblogs as well as text -alias SMS) has already grown massively (read this): Persian has raised up to 4th most frequent language in spite of all technical restrictions (I didn't find the source link, but I remember the first three was English, Polish and Chinese. In the above link it has been claimed to be 3rd) and to some extend the amateur publishers have unintentionally damaged Persian standard dictation, grammar, and punctuation. In long run, people may regret what they have done to journalism: After a while, the majority of the published news/info will not be trustful, people will start to hesitate whether or not what they read is true. Being optimistic on the other hand, this can be the turning point, where people start to improve their judgment, and screen out hoax out of news. Let's hope things go this way... PS: Just an appendix for fun... Posted @ 5/08/2004 06:51:00 PM ______________________________________________