Just as biotechnology and software have sprung up outside the mainstream drugs and computer industries, so the industry that has grown up on voice circuits will find it hard to transfer its grip to the new world of data networks.
The Net lets anyone with a computer and a modem compete mouse to mouse with mainstream media. (Drudge's publishing empire is the living room of his Hollywood apartment.) But many of the Net's would-be Woodwards and Bernsteins are journalistic novices and wouldn't think, say, to ask court or police sources to confirm a rumor.
Another early ad the next year for the much more mainstream Apple II pictured a woman preparing a meal, gazing adoringly at her mate working on the Apple computer on the kitchen table.