Don't like the media? Then do your own commentary web site

In one of my columns I claimed something like this: "the US govt. owns the media". I didn't mean that literally, but figuratively, since whatever administration in power at the time pretty much gets to dictate what the media conglomerates ought to report and with what slant (ie. spin).

This brought about a rather peed-off response from a reader, who that my putting this up was "irresponsible". After all, the govt. doesn't control the Internet.

Well, that's your opinion. I simply don't agree with you; yet I'm not going to argue the point here. This kind of criticism happens all the time for media critics.

However, if one doesn't like the media (or media critics either), one can create--over the Internet which the govt. doesn't control (though I have my doubts about that now as well, thanks to the Office of Intelligence Awareness which I reported on in the last couple of columns)--one's own commentary web site. One can even create a site that watchdogs the media (one of these is Smarter Times at "http://www.smartertimes.com", which watches the New York Times).

To do that you need to either learn HTML (hypertext markup language) or have web page design software which creates the HTML tags for you (but you still need to know what these tags are to edit your page, right? So you still need to know some HTML!). Starting in February, you can now take my Learn Basic HTML course at Suite University. You will learn everything you need to know to create a simple and basic, but interesting and lively, web page. You will learn to incorporate text, graphics, colors, backgrounds, links. fonts and more, as well as how to find a free web host (a place to "park" your site) and how to upload your pages, graphics, etc. The text for this course is the best and most useful text on learning HTML I have ever seen. The course plus the text is very affordable, some of the best money you'll ever spend. Finally, you can ask any question during (and even a few days after the course ends) the course, even if the material isn't covered in the course--for instance stuff like how to submit your site to search engines. You will also learn how to create your page side by side with doing the course!

Sign up at the following URL (web address) for this course:

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