Immediacy
One of the things the MSM really fails on is immediacy. One of the things that everyone's going to need to let go of as the new New Media gets created is the requirement of editing before publishing.
In our model, for instance, reporters will post directly to the live site. Then editors will make their comments/changes/further assignments, noting them on the original story if they are more substantive than a typo.
I've been meaning to mention a great example of how the immediacy of the web can work from
The Frontburner this week:
- On Monday at 9:43 AM, Wick posted about Brooks Edgerton's DMN story on the latest chapter in the Dallas Diocese pedophilic priest scandals, saying:
This is staggering news. When will the District Attorney finally get off his duff and investigate the Diocese's continuing pattern of criminal coverup?
- Then:
It's now 11:17 a.m. I just got off the phone with the DA's spokesperson and I raised this question: Why hasn't DA Bill Hill gotten a subpoena by now to go through the files at the Diocese of Dallas to find out how many other affadavits of child abuse there are that have not been reported to the police? Now I ask another question: Do we even have a district attorney?
- By lunchtime, local TV crews (who may be our closest kin) were covering the story.
- Midafternoon, a personal story from someone who had interactions with the priest.
- By day's end, the DA capitulates. (I know, the spokespeople said it would have happened anyway. Believe them if you like.)
In almost any other medium, the timeline above would have stretched for a minimum of three days, probably longer. This is going to be the lasting contribution of blogs -- The old "websites" ran on publication cycles like newspapers. They may have been shorter, but they were still limiting. Somehow, this simple piece of technology has made us able to understand that online, immediacy replaces cycles and deadlines.
We all have access to this kind of immediacy and transparency, from the "pajama-wearing bloggers" to the New York Times. Soon, only the ones who take advantage of it it will be relevant.
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