“What shooting? Where?”
Some of my friends hadn’t even heard of the Arizona incident, despite it’s presence plastered on seemingly every TV news outlet and website.
Coming off turn two from Christmas break and heading into the second semester, I am having an earnest lack of conviction in the 24-hour news cycle.
Naturally, I consulted the media doctors: USA Today, WSJ, NYT, WP.
If my select, under-informed friends represent one end of the news arc, Washington, D.C. aides characterize the opposing pole.
A NYT article detailed the sleepless lifestyle one must live to lead the race in the District: akin to attempting to know the news before it happens.
“We all work in environments where a 24-hour news cycle can very quickly become a 24-minute news cycle,” said Brandi Hoffine, a DNC spokesperson.
Wake-up times at 4 a.m. were common for everyone in the story.
A little neurotic? Uh, yeah. But we live in an age where the Library of Congress catalogs every single 140-character iteration that pops up from the masses.
While the news media are constantly looking for more fodder to feed into the system, there is a segment of the population that is outright ignoring the cycle. The Unawares reside outside the media loop, some by choice, others by a lack of resources (insert digital divide argument here).
Where is the Aristotelian mean?
It obviously lies somewhere between shunning news like it’s witchcraft and constantly searching for the “one needle in the haystack that’s going to matter,” according to D.C. aide Bobby Maldonado in the NYT piece.
You shouldn’t have to beat the sun to your computer to feel well-informed. You might also be grateful you have a computer.
It's the soup... 