12.4  IRC IN TIMES OF CRISIS


IRC has become a new medium for staying on top of really big breaking 
news.  In 1993, when Russian lawmakers barricaded themselves inside the 
parliament building, some enterprising Muscovites and a couple of 
Americans set up a "news channel" on IRC to relay first-person accounts 
direct from Moscow. The channel was set up to provide a continuous loop 
of information, much like all-news radio stations that cycle through the 
day's news every 20 minutes.  In 1994, Los Angeles residents set up a 
similar channel to relay information related to the Northridge 
earthquake.  In both cases, logs of the channels were archived somewhere 
on the Net, for those unable to "tune in" live. 

How would you find such channels in the future?  Use the /list command to 
scroll through the available channels.  If one has been set up to discuss 
a particular breaking event, chances are you'll see a brief description 
next to the channel name that will tell you that's the place to tune.