It’s late Sunday morning after a small gathering of friends and I admit to having a little bit of a headache from probably enjoying myself just a little too much. Frankly, I was a bit due for some kicking back and unplugging from a very intense period. When I finally made my way out of bed to grab a Snapple iced tea and some Advil, I reflexively checked my teeth–which I blame on the movie “The Hangover”, which is now one of my favorite comedies of all time.
After regaining enough ability to focus, I follow my normal routine which is to turn on the television and flip open the laptop to do the home version of what all news people do when they go to work, which is usually called “the read-in”. Simply put, this is the process of reading all of the various information sources available to get up to speed on the news of the day.
And on this particular Sunday morning, it becomes clear in a matter of moments that there are three stories competing for the top of the news agenda from all of the major news organizations:
First up, there is the ongoing coverage of the still-growing oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The President is heading down to the region to see the disaster for himself.
Second, the “morning after” the annual White House Correspondents Dinner, where the media and the President put on their formal wear and decide to be stand up comedians for a night.
And then, the big breaking story which has developed late Saturday night and into early Sunday morning, the discovery of what police are calling an “improvised explosive device”, or in plainer words–a car bomb, that fortunately did not go off. I say fortunately, because this vehicle-turned-bomb was a Nissan Pathfinder parked not somewhere in the Middle East, but in the middle of New York City’s Times Square district.
Well, there is a pretty busy news day in the making.
But what becomes clear in a short amount of time is that something is a bit out of whack. That many news organizations are in what would best be described as “catch up mode” on the story out of New York City. But that can’t be, can it?
It is clear that some of the news staffs have not slept too much.
But wait a minute, the reason why MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski are sitting on the lawn of the White House wearing sunglasses and formal wear (?) isn’t because they were up covering the breaking news all night–it’s because they are doing a full hour of breaking down on what is the biggest story of the morning of course, the White House Correspondents Dinner…
Riiiiiiight.
So to combat this disorientation on my part, I begin to go backwards through the history of our collective national timeline–which is of course, Twitter.
What becomes clear is that while the power elite of politics and the press were having a good time in DC, there was a major story developing in the heart of New York City. And if you read the collective opinion of those following the coverage and Twittering about it, much of the press was fairly slow out of the gate on covering this major story.
Given that the media business has been hit as hard as any enterprise during the nation’s economic woes of late, there will more than a few questions asked this week about what happened, not just in Times Square–where it looks like a T-shirt vendor and a quick thinking member of the NYPD are the real heroes of the hour–but also in the executive suites of news organizations in New York (and elsewhere) who will be dealing with the reminder that the news doesn’t always break on weekdays between 9 and 5.
And the headache they will be grappling with is the same one that I’ll be spending some time on (though be it on a much smaller scale). Whether or not the current realm of restructuring and reductions have left the press weakened in such a way that it becomes–as my television colleague Ann Nyberg has asked–”a threat to democracy?”
Strong words? Perhaps. But a lot of people are going to be having headaches this week that will rival the one I am nursing on this bright and sunny Sunday.
I suspect that they, like me–will be looking for more Advil and sunglasses.