I remember a time when the morning newspaper had a box, outlined in red, with breaking news that was occurring as the paper was put to bed.This morning, the Sydney Morning Herald arrived on the doorstep missing one of the biggest stories of the year - the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.
Now, I listen to the radio over night so it felt like the story was quite old by the time the paper came and it was surprising to see no mention of it.
In Wikipedia it is reported on her page that she died at 6:16pm local time, which is 12:16am Sydney time (a bit after midnight). Had the paper's front page been set in stone already?
Was the biggest story in the world the fact that NSW police didn't want a water cannon, or that the PM went to the cricket and didn't seem to enjoy it?
I know it's the silly season, but news doesn't stop and in recent years we've had some really big stories at this time of year, including a tsunami.
For three years I subscribed to Time magazine and there is some value to a publication that shows the news of the past week in a way that lets you get a feeling for what has transpired without any pretense of having the very latest news.
It's hard, (for me), to see the value of a broadsheet daily news paper. Our paper recycling bin is pretty much full of it. Perhaps it's time for a daily journal of opinion and analysis that doesn't pretend to have the news of the day any more.
1 comment:
I agree. The only value I see in the broadsheets these days is the editorials and letters.
And what happened to the Australian IT section? It used to be packed with local writing, now they just run a few pages with wire stories.
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