looking at the huge volume of online news that comes through my computer every day, i think back to 1996, when i got an assignment from the columbia journalism review to attend the republican national convention in san diego and find a media story. this being real news, i had to deliver the piece for the next issue of the magazine, whose deadline loomed. it was fun watching the tv press jockey their mics and cameras around funny-hatted delegates on the floor, and print journalists chasing the buchanan-dole punch-out. but for me, the hot story was that for the first time, the web was a player at a national convention. digital journalism had arrived. i stumbled onto the first attempts by msnbc