Obscure Criticism, Film at Eleven
Joseph Rago, in making his well-received criticism of the blogosphere, observes:
The right now is partially a function of technology, which makes instantaneity possible, and also a function of a culture that valorizes the up-to-the-minute above all else. But there is no inherent virtue to instantaneity. Traditional daily reporting–the news–already rushes ahead at a pretty good clip, breakneck even, and suffers for it. On the Internet all this is accelerated.
There may be “no inherent virtue to instantaneity,” but it’s certainly not the place of someone in the news business to say so.
Just look at the commercial news culture in this country and how much store it places by having the scoop and by being first on the scene and in breaking that latest bit of news. They depend on this stuff. They do not, as Rago says, “suffer” for it.
The public’s understanding and judgement may suffer for this obsession with getting the news out first and fastest, but it’s silly for an assistant editor for the Wall Street Journal —a publication that was using the Westar communications satellites back in 1974 to transmit the most recent market data possible for printing its regional editions— to dismiss the virtues of being current.
