Gnus Gnotes

The trouble with The Internet (I added caps to the definite article to make it seem More important, like I did just Then, and then, too) is there's too much stuff and not enough eyes to read it and brains to process it. Sort of like a forty gallon a minute hose pouring through a four quart a minute funnel. Things get lost and it's no one's fault.

As this century has progressed times have gotten tougher for news outlets in all media, and some have suggested that's not a bad thing. I know, if you're a fan of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation you're ready to argue with me about that statement but please note I did use the descriptive phrase, 'news outlets' as a fair and balanced qualifier. Seriously.

Today we use so many aggregators, services that scoop up stories we say we want to know more about, that we tend to forget where these stories come from in the first place. Folks like The Drudge Report don't author very much original material, they point visitors to sites which have the stories, sort of like Ed Sullivan at the height of the British Invasion.

Oldest child that I am, in addition to worrying about who pays the freight for the 'original' reporters when their outlets fold as advertising disappears, I also worry that we can become modern art paintings with both of our eyes on the same side of our nose or one ear above the other on the same side of our heads. That is, we seem to choose Lindsay Lohan (27,900,000 results in 0.25 seconds on Google) over the BP Oil Spill (About 23,900,000 results in 0.22 seconds, also on Google) when thinking of 'news we should know' and I hope you'll agree that's not a good idea. And to prove my point, I think, here's a story I'm pretty sure won't make the pages of the New York Times (anytime soon) or the C-SPAN airwaves, but I'm not confident we can say the same for local outlets across the country, especially the-well you know which ones I worry about....

-bill kenny