re: Internet and main media networks
That's excellent advice, Gary, and not just for space-related news.
I would differ only in this regard: the Britney Spears, Scott Peterson, Michael Jackson stories are not necessarily what the public wants, but rather what the propaganda mongers think it should have. The mainstream media's objective is not so much to inform the public as it is to mold the public. Just consider Frank Lloyd Wright's comment:
"Television is chewing gum for the eyes."
If you keep the public fixated on trivial sensationalism, you keep it from pondering more important issues, and perhaps, from asking troubling questions. How else was the Bush admininstration, on the flimsiest of "evidence," able to terrify the public with the specter of Iraq's phantom WMDs?
Pardon the digression.
When it comes to space and/or science, the attractive talkiing heads who populate the mainstream media, for the most part, have neither the science nor the art to tell the story with accuracy and elegance.
S