ENOUGH! Few of us can lay claim to keeping up with the days news without a great deal of duplication. I think we can justify ourselves in doing so, because the very system whereby we are kept it touch with activities of the rest of mankind - as well as that of all there is to knows about the cosmic surroundings as well.
“News“ today is something far more complicated than it was just a few years ago.
Not too may years ago a newspaper subscribed to a service which specialized in supplying headline and basic information concerning, perhaps, a score of “important stories. That was the “news” and we spoke confident of putting the morning edition of our paper “to bed” by two o'clock a.m.; three, at the most. The news” page or pages had yet to be printed and distributed throughout the city and rural areas served. Brevity, concise clarity and truthfulness were basic requirements growing out of the actual doing of each step-by-step of it all. We worked with a deeply set sense of pride, too – confident, you might say, that what were doing was needed was worthwhile.
The evening edition was much more terse. Stories were shorter. It was part of my job as “re-write” man to make use of the rented service which provided headings and initial paragraphs only - an economy measure taken to keep the front office happy. It was my job to fit the stories to spaces available. The evening edition had editorials on the news of the morning edition which,of course, all had to done by noon. Editors had precious little time to to think about such on such matters.
The very nature of news gathering, reading, and publishing has change dramatically and is still in changing. The format of newspaper has changed to features-papers - comments and opinions on the news item rather than the items themselves. Half-hour news programs on radio and TV have been shrinking. Five minutes -in all honesty, more like two or three items on each side of commercial “messages”.
It has all created a threatening wall of “clutter”. News - as such - has become a burden. The repetitive nature of today's news is killing it slowly but surely.
A.L.M. June 4, 2005 [c546wds]
