Informational Faithfulness and Loyalty

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First piece of news.
A survey by Nielsen NetRatings for The Independent on Sunday indicates that Britain is the fastest growing market for the Internet adult pornography business:
  • more than nine million men (almost 40% of Britain's male population) used pornographic websites in 2005 compared with an estimated two million in 2000
  • one in four adults, including 1.6 million women, download porn images each month
  • one in four men aged 25 to 49 (2.5 million) have visited an adult website in the last month (April) alone
  • some 1.5 million women used Internet pornography in the last 12 months, up from one million in the previous year.
  • men and women spent an average 40 minutes each month looking at pornographic websites while half of all couples watched pornography on the Internet together.
  • more than half of all children (60% or seven million) have come across pornography on the Internet while looking for something else.
  • the British porn industry is now estimated to be worth about one billion pounds (1.45 billion euros, 1.85 billion dollars).
  • British web users look up the word "porn" more than any other on search engines.
Is one unfaithful to one's partner or spouse if one downloads XXX information and, the reasonable assumption is, has standalone sex? I grew up as a catholic. So I was taught that one could sin "in pensieri, parole, opere e omissioni", in thoughts, words, deeds and omissions. My catholic years are over, but I still have those quick-and-clean guidelines in mind. So, apparently, have other people, as it were. How would you react if you discovered that your sweetheart spent a substantial amount of time watching XXX? According to the survey, many women react in exactly the same way as if they had discovered their partner were having an affair. It seems reasonable, to be honest. One is supposed not to betray one's partner, not even with oneself or one's fantasies. It seems that faithfulness is not just a matter of physical intercourse.

Second piece of news.
The International Press Institute (IPI) is holding its 2006 World Congress in Edinburgh these days. The topic: long-term challenges and opportunities brought about by the new media age, the rise of the Internet, the technological changes in the press business, and the bloggization of information. An example many of us in the UK witnessed: pictures of the London bombing came from passengers' mobiles, not from professional reporters.
Pointlessly and boringly, some people warn that the web is going to reshape their industry. Thank you very much. It is far more interesting to ask who will edit and aggregate the news (who is the editor of the TV news one is watching? Why that particular syntax? It makes a big difference to talk about x and then y, instead of y and then x; etc.) and who will investigate the story. Mary may take a picture and John may recount his experience, but it is up to the journalist to gather the information, check its reliability and uncover the unsaid or the hidden. It's a tough job, it requires outstanding skills, and it involves long times. Readers may no longer be loyal to their daily Tabloids. It's about time. I'm always amazed by the Gargantuan capacity, of a vast chunk of the population, to swallow so much pointless rubbish. But they could become faithful to reporters who do their job well. In the process, weekly and monthly may become informationally priceless for their added analyses. For anything else there is Web News.

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