In 1941, friends, family and neighbors gathered around radios in living rooms around the country to hear then President Franklin D. Roosevelt announce that Pearl Harbor had been attacked.

In 1963, stunned crowds pressed their faces against store front glass to watch the news of the Kennedy assassination on those new black and white television sets.

In 2001, millions accessed on line news media to watch the events unfold on a fateful September morning.

The internet has forever changed the way that many people in the world receive their news. The evening news on network channels progressed into 24 hour cable news channels and newspapers have seen their circulation numbers drop with each passing quarter. Passively watching news has given way to actively pursuing the news stories that people want to know.

Internet users have the ability to pick and choose the type and amount of news that they would like to receive and how that news is delivered. News blogs provide journalists with the means for publishing in depth analysis of a news story. RSS syndication allows fans of particular bloggers or websites to receive updates on a regular basis. One can choose sites that have a particular political slant, or choose news from sites that focus on specific issues such as environmental concerns or homeland security.

The volume and depth of news information available via the internet greatly surpasses what has always been available through the traditional media outlets. Couple this with timely and inventive delivery methods on the internet and it is easy to see the impact that on-line news services have on how people in the information age receive their news.