Tuesday
Mar292011
It's an interconnected world, but it moves too fast?
Tuesday, March 29, 2011 at 3:48AM
As my lovely girlfriend talks about in a number of her blog posts, the technology at our fingertips makes getting news and information instant and incredibly easy. At any given time, I can log onto the BBC News website or the NYTimes and learn what is going on in the world, often at that exact moment. With Twitter, approximately every 10 seconds I get a new update from some news source or another, with a new bit of information or a new take on something. Or even a whole new story I haven't even seen yet.
It's incredible to think how much is really happening at any given time in the world, and that even with all this technology at our disposal, how much we still miss. I could spend a whole day clicking links from just news sites, and reading the associated articles, but I would still miss a large portion of the day's news and events. Perhaps even more than half.
And that's not to mention all the untold stories and events, those which media moguls deem too trivial, or too boring, or just not worthy of being told. (Sub-Saharan Africa for example, continues to struggle with absolute poverty, unclean drinking water, corruption and violence- but, it's Old News. Been there. Done that.)
While I agree with Nicole that such instant easy news is great for the population to access, especially those people who perhaps shy away from traditional news sources, I think the fast pace of online journalism and 24 hour news has its downsides. My biggest problem is the amount I miss because everything is updated so fast. Breaking news takes the top spot on the BBC website for example, then something else happens, it's relegated to second place, then more developments in the second event prompt multiple articles, and before you know it, the first event has completely disappeared from the front page. If you didn't catch it when it happened, you have probably now missed it.
That's why I like the newspaper; even though the news is hours old by the time it reaches my door- never mind the time I actually read it- the printed material gives me time to peruse a number of stories that I would not normally have read about.
Of course, it could just be me being slow! That's true in the case of my blogging- there's something I want to write about, and I spend too much time procrastinating and doing other things, that by the time I get around to writing it, the events have come and gone and a lot of people have forgotten about it and no longer care!
Or do they?
I think that because news moves so fast, there are a number of angles to stories, particularly human interest ones, which never get heard. There is more depth to events which never quite surfaces. There is just more to be said.
So that's why I am going to keep writing about the news events that I want to, regardless of whether they are a few months old. It will be a welcome refresher, and may even make you think about something you hadn't considered before... That's if I am lucky.
It's incredible to think how much is really happening at any given time in the world, and that even with all this technology at our disposal, how much we still miss. I could spend a whole day clicking links from just news sites, and reading the associated articles, but I would still miss a large portion of the day's news and events. Perhaps even more than half.
And that's not to mention all the untold stories and events, those which media moguls deem too trivial, or too boring, or just not worthy of being told. (Sub-Saharan Africa for example, continues to struggle with absolute poverty, unclean drinking water, corruption and violence- but, it's Old News. Been there. Done that.)
While I agree with Nicole that such instant easy news is great for the population to access, especially those people who perhaps shy away from traditional news sources, I think the fast pace of online journalism and 24 hour news has its downsides. My biggest problem is the amount I miss because everything is updated so fast. Breaking news takes the top spot on the BBC website for example, then something else happens, it's relegated to second place, then more developments in the second event prompt multiple articles, and before you know it, the first event has completely disappeared from the front page. If you didn't catch it when it happened, you have probably now missed it.
That's why I like the newspaper; even though the news is hours old by the time it reaches my door- never mind the time I actually read it- the printed material gives me time to peruse a number of stories that I would not normally have read about.
Of course, it could just be me being slow! That's true in the case of my blogging- there's something I want to write about, and I spend too much time procrastinating and doing other things, that by the time I get around to writing it, the events have come and gone and a lot of people have forgotten about it and no longer care!
Or do they?
I think that because news moves so fast, there are a number of angles to stories, particularly human interest ones, which never get heard. There is more depth to events which never quite surfaces. There is just more to be said.
So that's why I am going to keep writing about the news events that I want to, regardless of whether they are a few months old. It will be a welcome refresher, and may even make you think about something you hadn't considered before... That's if I am lucky.
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