March 4, 1995

New information technologies represent both good news and bad news, the head of the Department of Communication at Utah State University told members of the Society of Professional Journalists at their annual meeting Denver Friday.

"Whose news is it? Who has access to it? And what happens to people's lives, and what happens to the democratic system when the information highway comes to our door?" Dr. Ted Pease asked an audience of journalists at Denver's Press Club. "If we can work at home, shop at home, talk to our friends from home, vote at home "what happens to society's fabric?"

Pease was "clean-up hitter" on a panel discussing "The Legal and Ethical Implications of Technology," which included a Denver legal expert and faculty from the University of Colorado-Boulder. The session opened a two-day meeting of journalists, professors and students at the regional meeting of SPJ, the nation's largest professional journalists' association.

Pease, a media scholar and researcher who spent six years as a reporter and editor, moved from Columbia University in New York City last summer to head USU's communication department. Although he sees great promise in new media technologies that offer an "information superhighway," Pease warns of "unintended consequences" to individuals and society.

"The good news is that you'll be able to get all the information you want; everything from stocks and bonds to global warming to the local library calendar from your home, at the touch of a few buttons," Pease said. "The bad news is that hundreds of interactive TV channels in the home may mean that we'll have no reason to know our neighbors. Will we all become electronic couch potatoes too focused on our own personal "programs" to take part anymore in the democratic process?" Pease asked. "That's the paradox of everyone having his or her own personal communication channel- we don't talk to each other. Where's the "national town meeting" that Americans used to have every night at the feet of Walter Cronkite?"

Pease joined Sue O#Brien, associate dean of the College of Communication at the University of Colorado, CU Professor Bruce Henderson, and Denver attorney Charlotte Weissner in the opening session of the regional journalists' meeting.

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