Re: Clinton at Brandenburg Gate

[David Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>]

Posted-Date: Mon, 11 Jul 1994 19:45:51 -0400
From-Uucp: frankston.com!Bob_Frankston
From: Bob_Frankston () frankston com
To: farber () central cis upenn edu
Subject: Re: Clinton at Brandenburg Gate
Date: Mon, 11 Jul 1994 19:44 -0400


One topic I haven't seen addressed often is how much newspapers depend on our
lack of access to history. The bulk of the paper (outside the ads, themselves
repetitive) seems to be made up of a combination of timeless feature stories
and repeated reports of "solutions" to problems.  I just noticed the annual
"Green Fly" article in the Boston Globe reporting same flies, new pictures
and maybe some new interviews. (Yes, I know there is also a lot of new news
and novel situations and sports and comic strips and columns and other
stuff.).


The current situation does have the advantage of allowing one to skim
headlines and concentrate only on exception conditions.


The print side of the "500 channels" is the availability not only of today's
news but a history of feature stories with equal ease.  I don't know how this
is going to play out. The newspapers do provide a function in reminding you
once more about the green flies and trying to make it fresh and entertaining.
And one can feel informed without being overwhelmed.


Yesterdays news is actually very interesting. It is just inaccessible and
must be refreshed daily. Making it accessible is going to have a major
implications. Especially when coupled with manual or automatic reminders.