And as people become more interested in what is happening outside their village, their province and their nation, more and more technological expertise is required to satisfy that interest. In this way reporters, editors and publishers came to use the telegraph, the teletype, telephones, cameras and recorders in order to contact sources and document the day's events. They developed high-speed color presses and sophisticated broadcast systems to send out the news to an increasingly interconnected world. Journalists are not alone in weathering this transformation. Indeed, it is partly because other segments of society are changing so rapidly that journalists in Asia and elsewhere must keep pace.
Improved telecommunications is the foundation for the information revolution sweeping the world.
Better telephone service and the ability to accommodate fax and data traffic are necessities, not only for international journalism, but for international commerce in all its forms. International corporations are willing to make multibillion-dollar investments in telecommunications infrastructure because markets are becoming more global in nature, and because the privatization of Asian telecommunications authorities is increasing the opportunities for profit. The pace of international investment is likely to quicken under the more liberal trade conditions that came into force this year. To this point, the Asia-Pacific region has been a relative laggard in the field. In percentage terms, usage of personal computers and computer networks is four times greater in the United States than in Japan.