The Internet Press Guild (IPG) is an Internet-based professional organization for technology journalists. It was originally formed in 1996 to help generalist, non-technical journalists understand and write about
the Web
The World Wide Web (WWW), commonly known as the Web, is an information system enabling documents and other web resources to be accessed over the Internet.
Documents and downloadable media are made available to the network through web se ...
and other Internet technology topics. More recently, it has mainly become an active, private forum for its members to discuss professional topics.
About
The IPG presents itself as, "A professional organization promoting excellence in journalism about the Internet and technology. Critical to the guild is a private mailing list that connects the editors, writers, and analysts in the Internet press community."
As veteran freelance journalist and IPG member Pam Baker put it in 2009:
History
The Guild descended from the
USENET
Usenet () is a worldwide distributed discussion system available on computers. It was developed from the general-purpose Unix-to-Unix Copy (UUCP) dial-up network architecture. Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979, and it was ...
group ''alt.internet.media-coverage''. In the mid-1990s, the journalists who relied on the group became frustrated by the disruptive behavior of a few group members. Several members, including Esther Schindler and Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, proposed moving their discussions to an invitation-only
email list
A mailing list is a collection of names and addresses used by an individual or an organization to send material to multiple recipients. The term is often extended to include the people subscribed to such a list, so the group of subscribers is re ...
.
As Baker described it in 2009:
[Behind The Mainstream Media Veil: Secrets and the Internet Press Guild](_blank)
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On April 5, 1996, the IPG announced its formation in a press release with the byline of Vaughan-Nichols—who has since been named IPG chair. The release described the Guild:[Internet Press Guild Formed—press release](_blank)
/ref>
As described by Vaughan-Nichols, the IPG was originally formed to help generalist, non-technical journalists understand and write about the Web
The World Wide Web (WWW), commonly known as the Web, is an information system enabling documents and other web resources to be accessed over the Internet.
Documents and downloadable media are made available to the network through web se ...
and other Internet
The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...
technology topics. More recently, it has mainly become an active, private forum for its members to discuss professional topics.
ACLU award
The IPG and its members are recipients of the ''Civil Liberties Award'' from the ACLU Foundation, as part of the fight to prevent censorship through the ultimately failed Communications Decency Act
The Communications Decency Act of 1996 (CDA) was the United States Congress's first notable attempt to regulate pornographic material on the Internet. In the 1997 landmark case ''Reno v. ACLU'', the United States Supreme Court unanimously struck ...
of 1996.
See also
* Bruce Byfield
Bruce Byfield (born May 13, 1958) is a Canadian journalist who specializes in writing about free and open source software. He has been a contributing editor at Linux.com, and his articles have appeared on the Datamation, LWN, Linux Developer Net ...
* Mary Jo Foley
Mary Jo Foley is an American freelance technology writer, author, podcaster and news editor. She regularly writes news, previews, and reviews for Microsoft's strategy, products and technology. Foley has been covering news on Microsoft Windows, and ...
* David Gewirtz
David Allen Gewirtz is a journalist, author, and U.S. policy advisor working in technology and national security policy. He currently serves as director of the U.S. Strategic Perspective Institute.
Gewirtz is a CNN contributor, a CBS contribut ...
* Ed Bott
Ed Bott is an American technology journalist and author, known for his books and articles on Microsoft Windows. While he has over twenty years of experience writing about a variety of tech-related topics and has written for some well-known medi ...
* Ross Greenberg
Ross Matthew Greenberg (September 16, 1956 – February 16, 2017) was an American software developer, noted for creating one of the first antivirus software products. He also worked in journalism, and was a founding member of the Internet Press ...
– a founding member
* Tristan Louis
Tristan Louis (born February 28, 1971) is a French-born American author, entrepreneur and internet activist.
Early work
Louis was born in Digne-les-Bains, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence. In 1994 and 1995, as publisher of iWorld, part of the Mecklermedia ...
– a founding member
* Robin "Roblimo" Miller
* Jason Perlow
References
{{Reflist, 30em
External links
Internet Press Guild website
Journalism-related professional associations