The pace of news

News travels quickly. It always has. And with internet sources, it's even faster.

However, an aspect of news coverage infrequently mentioned is the generational divide in news sourcing. My mother is aware of the internet, but has never used it. But at least she's aware of her deficit. I still encounter people who imagine that the internet is a fad, and that in a few years, it -- like pet rocks -- will be remembered no more. A vivid example to me was that of Charles Robert Jenkins, who defected to North Korea during the Korean war. When he finally returned to the US in 2004, he imagined that his story might be covered in the now old Life magazine. 24 hour TV news coverage was something he could scarcely imagine, much less the internet.

The story about the cancellation of the KFUO radio program is an example. I suspect that those responsible for this imagined that most of us would learn of the action in the LCMS' news magazine, The Reporter. Of course, the story was broken within hours by my friend and former pastor William Weedon and in a week, the news has remained active, on his site and others, and is being picked up by even dead tree journalists.

In a way, one feels sorry for politicians. We are told by the Psalmist (116.11) "All men are liars," but politicians have perfected this trait to an art form. At one point, they could lie with impunity, and the poodle press would generally cut them some slack. No more. An example is the story I posted yesterday. Sen. Clinton, seeking to embellish her street creds as an experienced and formidable international negotiator, told a story of landing in Bosnia in 1995 during our invasion of that sad country, and having to dodge bullets at the airport, and generally not being welcomed well.

Youtube, however, put the lie to that little memory, showing a CBS story which showed she and her daughter being welcomed, greeted, and generally feted during the trip. Her spinmeisters are all over the story, of course, providing helpful and disingenuous explanations, but anyone with high speed internet connections can see what happened and judge which version of the story is correctamente.