Dinosaur Jr.
UN Committee
Fusion Man
First Swim
A week of sunshine in May is enough to get the casuals in the water.
Guns at the table
Theremin Calling
Obits in the news
Writing about the death of Albert Hofmann, discoverer of LSD, was a particularly difficult job because the news broke not in the traditional way (a fax to the news agencies or a death notice in the paper) but via blogs, message boards and wikis. These anonymous and therefore unverified sources can be useful for tip-offs, but they’re a nightmare when you want to publish and there’s no reliable confirmation.
The LA Times was one of the first to go on record _ citing a US Web site _ and quickly became a secondary source for other publications. This isn’t entirely ethical in my view, but it demonstrates the desperation to match your competitor’s scoop.
By the time we got official confirmation the news had been online for about twelve hours, and on the LA Times site for about six. That’s a very long time in the news business.
Of course the usual suspects plagiarized, and were joined by others who wanted their byline atop a major news item.
C’est la vie _ or in this case le mort.
-
-
About
Musings of a wire reporter in Geneva. Feel free to contact me with your questions about journalism, Switzerland, or anything else I write about on this blog.
