Be grateful that amidst the

insufferable hype surrounding

journalism both on and off the

Web, your friends at Suck can be

counted upon to stick with

writing about items of genuine

interest to some of the sharper

net surfers out there. Because,

trust us - if our narcissism

were measured in MB instead of

Mb, we could provide ample

entertainment solely in the form

of self-satisfied

behind-the-scenes hijinks at

Suck HQ.

After a short month of

publication, we've paid witness

to enough back-channel inanity

to make for quite the real world

cyberthriller (but until the

book deals come roaring in,

we're making it a general rule

to keep our mouths shut.) Still,

when given the opportunity to

simultaneously stroke our own

egos, tattle-tale, and prank a

media behemoth, our credibility

as WWW-class ballbreakers all

but depends upon us rising to

the occasion.

Y'see, at Suck, we cast our

critical gaze towards more than

the general slapstick routinely

offered by the Internet

community - we also pay close

attention to our "referer" logs.

So, when we started logging hits

originating from links on

Time-Warner's Pathfinder, we

quickly tooled on down to their

media morass for some spry

reconnaissance. What we found

left us both surprised and

amused.

Turns out the whispers we'd heard

about Pathfinder gearing up for

a new net news section (monikered

"The Netly News" - get it?) are

true. What we hadn't banked on

was finding a prototype for the

section, rumored to launch 24

October, that's not only

mistakenly left open to the Web

at large, but also seemingly

"heavily inspired" by our own

meager efforts here at Suck.

The first piece we stumbled upon

was a feature covering the Heidi

Dangelmaier scandal at SIGGRAPH,

paraphrased from and formatted

curiously similar to our own

piece on the subject which ran 1

September. In a typical display

of WWW gracelessness, the folks

at Pathfinder make the "mistake"

of linking directly into our

supplementary material without

providing a link to the article

itself. Way New Journalism at

it's finest!

We'd have thought they'd have

their act together a bit tighter

than that, what with the Netly

News being executive produced by

none other than Joshua Quittner,

an otherwise respectable net

journalist whose pieces for

Wired on mcdonalds.com, the

anon@penet.fi server, and the

Masters of Deception

have rarely disappointed.

(Yeah, yeah ... we're

flattered.)

If Josh and his underlings need a

little helping hand when it

comes to conceptual planning,

we're happy to oblige. And we're

sure the server activity and

e-mail you Sucksters are likely

to generate will provide just

the kind of helpful feedback

they so desperately need. We only

hope Quittner and Co., amidst

their sniffing of our soiled

linens, don't become so distracted

that they forget to honor their

campaign promises...

[Update: Pathfinder was quick to

close off access to their internal

server, leaving us with a flattering

"Suck On This" message that, in its

own turn, was then summarily removed.

We eagerly anticipate the

24 October unveiling...]