Re: Bill of Goods, from The Netly News Network

[Tim May <tcmay@got.net>]

At 7:54 PM -0800 5/9/97, Declan McCullagh wrote:
>Thanks, Tim. I've decided I should ditch the Time Magazine style I think
>of as "high analysis" and return to more opinionated writing. I feel
>better about the latter, and I think it's more interesting to read. That's
>what I was doing at HotWired; I've been experimenting more at Netly.

I sympathize with your situation, such as I understand it. (I was gone from
Intel by 1986, long before public issues became so common, long before the
Net was as influential as today. No doubt, were I still at Intel, or
elsewhere, I would be constrained in what I would be allowed to write
about.)

Writing for "Time" or "Newsweek" will work for only a very few folks. Levy,
for example, does a quite reasonable job for "Newsweek"..but, then, he went
to "Newsweek" with a long history of Net contributions (notably, "Hackers,"
of course) and writes in his own style.

(I'm not sure who writes for "Time," as I no longer read any of the
newsweeklies, or dailies. Last I looked, it was Elmer-Dewitt who ran the
show.)

Frankly, I'm not sure there's any reasonable amount of money to be made in
journalism these days, for various reasons I won't get into right now.

A war is coming (arguably, the opening shots have already been fired) and
the newsweeklies are a poor place for anyone with actual principles.

--Tim May

There's something wrong when I'm a felon under an increasing number of laws.
Only one response to the key grabbers is warranted: "Death to Tyrants!"
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^1398269     | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."