"What is matter? - Never mind. /What is mind? - No matter.' -Punch.

Though quoted centuries ago as philosophy, today Punch's rhetoric is more properly used to critique the media as we know it. Media informs, it confuses, it follows directions, it hides. It is mind and it is matter.

But the task of a media critic is not so easily defined. To discern the blind men from the elephants, the critic must inspect the mind, the matter and the filter through which information flows.

In Charlottesville, we have a news medium that makes local news a two-way street - virtual news sites. Interactive news has obvious benefits. Freely expressed rationale can be downloaded at geek-neck speed. The potential to discover more information on any given topic is certainly there, but how is it used?

Cvillenews.com gets between 1,000 and 9,000 hits per day, an average weekday seeing around 4,000 hits. On his site, Waldo Jaquith claims he has a core group of a few hundred, users that visit 'obsessively' and 1,000 or so who visit regularly. But in the time I have spent visiting the site, I walk away questioning these numbers. Besides the anonymous posters, it seems to be the same three people continuously posting comments - Jaquith, 'Lafe' and someone called 'Cecil.' Who are these people, and why aren't they at work?

Jaquith's cvillenews.com features introductory paragraphs outlining pertinent issues playing out on the stage of present-day Charlottesville. Most of the headlines are lifted from local papers and broadcast media, such as City [School Board] superintendent selection troubles, the BAR approval of Downtown demolition or, our personal favorite, 'C-VILLE Weekly: news or navel gazing?'

These Cliff Notes versions of the issues do offer the reader in-depth information with highlighted links to full stories, graphics, even bios of the places or people described. But even with, all this at hand, the commentary that ensues when Jaquith asks, 'Anyone care to speculate on this?' rarely offers interesting insight or an enlightening point of view.

While this is truly 'two-way street' news at its finest, what does cvillenews.com add or subtract from the issues? It remains informative, but it also remains a vanity medium for web-posters in much the same way as a reflective store window serves passers-by.

Take, for example, cvillenews.com's string of responses to the new Giant grocery store on Pantops Mountain giving 'much-needed' competition to the Food Lion by way of 'more technology, a cleaner store and better customer service.' The postings begin with one by Jaquith:

'I used one of those self-checkout lanes for a full basket of groceries yesterday, and it sucked. Fully 1/4 of the items wouldn't scan, and required re-scanning (often 6-10 times) or cashier intervention. Because it verifies by weight, it's necessary to put the scanned items on one of the little bag scales. Which is neat until you fill up all three scales ... it's kind of neat, but the thrill wore off after it took us (me and my girlfriend) easily four times longer to check out than it would have has [sic] we gone to a teller.'

'Lafe,' No. 2 of the three or so 'obsessed' posters, writes, 'The self-checkout at Food Lion is actually superior to the ones in Giant ... but by all means, don't do a whole cartload (or two) on your own. My wife and I tried that once. It went ok as long as I did the bagging, because I could keep up with her scanning. I much prefer to go through a regular line though.'

And 'Cecil,' behind door No. 3, responds: 'Once you get the hang of it ... self-checkout rocks, in my opinion. I've tried the one at Kroger/Rio Hill and Harris Teeter. You can't do a whole cart-full of stuff, though. And if you're writing a check, you might as well stand in a regular line.'

Gripping so far, I know. But the lack of integrity soon falls in place as the comments spin into just another virtual chat room for ranting and raving. In response to a self-checkout infomercial, an anonymous commentator posts: 'There's nothing to celebrate about a new corporate grocery store on 250W [sic]. We need to be demolishing such structures, not building more. Sprawl, sprawl, sprawl. When will it end?'

Another anonymous commentator responds with, 'Hey anti-sprawl anonymous, Ted Kaczynski called - he wants his manifesto and outhouse back.' The reader continues on this downward spiral of intelligent commentary with further postings such as 'Wahhhhhhhhh!' and 'Why don't you move to another country? We don't need your lame-brained-ideas around here.'

Herein lies the problem with cvillenews.com: Not the unedited letters to the editor, but the very way cvillenews.com is set up. Within the instant, anonymous postings, the facts are cheapened and the comments are relegated by a loss of direction. Where I expected a modicum amount of consideration before clicking the 'Reply to this' button, I saw none. Where I was hoping to find an elephant, I found an obsessive core of blind men.

Loper.org, hosted by George Loper, self-proclaimed 'Editor Ludorum,' is our second interactive news website in Charlottesville. Dave Sagarin teams up with Loper as reporter on the street extraordinaire. Although the recently acquired 'baggie of chads' on the opening page was a cute addition, loper.org is not based on 'cute' accounts of supermarket headaches. And it's packed with something other than anonymous moot points - the moot points here have owners with names and, sometimes, pictures.

Loper.org has the same starting point as cvillenews.com - pulled news pieces from papers such as The Daily Progress and The Washington Post. But as cvillenews.com evolves into an uncontrollable chat room, loper.org evolves into a public venue in which to thoughtfully consider things. While I have no doubt there is also an obsessive core that routinely logs onto Loper's site, at least I don't have to hear from them.

The site mainly derives its interactivity in two ways: Loper and Sagarin literally seek out a variety of interviews from local polls, critics and analysts and letters to the editor (they're edited, no anonymous need apply). But Loper's site doesn't lose any drive or humor due to the fact it's, well, edited. For instance, Valerie L'Herrou closes her posting on the 2002 Charlottesville City Council race with 'Perhaps [Rob] Schilling's real strength was to be himself. No doubt he had advisors telling him to cut his hair. Evidently he ignored this advice.'

Loper.org has its drawbacks. Those of us who do not know Loper personally likely do not care to see pictures of his son's car, nor do we care to read how original 'editor ludorums' of the Roman Empire oversaw the training of gladiators.

But at least the real meat of Loper's site is easily accessible. The left hand column allows you to scan for everything from 'Religion and Health: New Research Revives an Old Debate,' to Charlottesvillian responses to hate crime laws and WINA programming.

Loper even takes his site one step beyond news. There's a Rogues' Gallery of Democrats, Republicans, Independents, Community Activists, journalists, newscasters and educators. There are e-mail addresses and phone numbers for State Senators, Representatives and the Governor.

Still, both Internet news sites share one thing: the advantage of archives. Newspapers have a daily life span, magazines, a monthly life span and broadcast media, about two minutes. But electronic media lasts forever. It doesn't go away (even if you want it to).

Perhaps loper.org works more efficiently and feels more honorable than cvillenews.com because of the simple fact that Loper edits it before posting it online. This realization might frustrate us. Drunk in our own personal freedoms, we all want an instant, candid message board to work. But then the question becomes, at what point will our self-imposed editor step in?" (Kathryn E. Goodson, C-Ville Weekly, June 11, 2002)