Wednesday, January 4, 2006

Miner Coverage

The editor of my paper writes about issues brought about by this "they're alive!" then "no, they're not" story.

He writes:

I was also reminded that while many things have changed in the news business, an essential thing about the daily newspaper remains true: It is a snapshot of a day's events. The last deadline --– the moment the press rolls, or in this case, the moment a diligent editor replates the front page to get in the latest news -- is the shutter snapping on the day. If something happens between 1 a.m. and morning to change events, so be it.

I will comment at length on this later, but this seems a story where newspapers, frankly, don't do a perfect job. When events change quickly, and when they change quickly at deadline, newspapers can fall behind. We don't have the capabilities of Web sites, television or even radio.

But we're also in the news business. That's our job. And that's our struggle in these situations.