Every morning, after my all-too-brief prayer time, I turn on CNN. This morning, when I saw the coverage of the Benazir Bhutto assassination, I watched for only a few minutes before going online. The American television news agencies have cut back so much on their coverage of world events that they no longer have the power they once did to bring multiple reporters on to a story instantly. I’ll still check in on the television throughout the day, but will stream BBC news on the radio and spend more time online, visiting my “usual sources”.
This is a tragedy, of course, but it’s another reminder as well that news-gathering organizations really ought to refrain from doing their “top stories of the year” in mid-December. When you look back over the past few years (the tsunami, the Hussein execution, this assassination), it’s evident lots of newsworthy events can happen after Christmas and before New Year’s Day.
Recent Comments