New information is not always —
and perhaps not even usually — the most important information for
understanding a topic. The overriding focus on the new made sense when
the dominant technology was newsprint: limited space forces hard
choices. You can't print a newspaper telling readers everything they
need to know about the world, day after day. But you can print a
newspaper telling them what they need to know about what happened on
Monday. The constraint of newness was crucial.
and perhaps not even usually — the most important information for
understanding a topic. The overriding focus on the new made sense when
the dominant technology was newsprint: limited space forces hard
choices. You can't print a newspaper telling readers everything they
need to know about the world, day after day. But you can print a
newspaper telling them what they need to know about what happened on
Monday. The constraint of newness was crucial.
The web has no such limits.
There's space to tell people both what happened today and what happened
that led to today. But the software newsrooms have adopted in the
digital age has too often reinforced a workflow built around the old
medium. We've made the news faster, more beautiful, and more accessible.
But in doing we've carried the constraints of an old technology over to
a new one.
There's space to tell people both what happened today and what happened
that led to today. But the software newsrooms have adopted in the
digital age has too often reinforced a workflow built around the old
medium. We've made the news faster, more beautiful, and more accessible.
But in doing we've carried the constraints of an old technology over to
a new one.