Non-stop news
by Ken Auletta
on p. 42 in The New Yorker,
January 25, 2010
Journalism may now not offer food for thought, but food for responses.
Peter Baker says that a reporter covering his beat ten years ago had “the luxury of writing for the next day’s newspaper. He had at least a few hours to call people, to access information, to provide context. Today, as much as you want to do that, by the time your deadline comes around you’ve already filed for the Web” – often more than once. In between times, you’ve files for radio, and appeared on TV, and maybe done a podcast or blog.
(…)
Everything is rushed. Anita Dunn says, “When journalists call you to discuss a story, it’s not because they’re interested in having a discussion. They’re interested in a response. And the need to file five times a day encourages this.”
Information consumes attention. We no longer want more information. We need less information.
Now that we’ve seen revolutions in recording (digital input devices), storing (massive hard disk drive and cloud storage) and searching (Google), we may need a revolution in reviewing and editing (abstracting knowledge).
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