Long Perspective

Daring Fireball linked to 3 key parts of news you usually don't get.

I can't help but agree. I often feel unsatisfied by the lack of long perspective on the health care reform debate. Every news on Huffington Post, CNN, New York Times, and other news sites and papers are breathless in its coverage of the immediate event, as if recent events could have an unalterably large effect on future directions. The shallow parsing done on the Obama Administration's constant, though alarmingly centrist position on the public option is amplified into a meaningless act of putting words in a person's mouth.

It is important to think in terms of context, to give people ideas of the process of health care, rather than reporting on whatever new events are happening, because people don't have the capacity to process and organize information in a manner that allows them to be enlightened at the end of the day. And in fact, it is too easy for newspapers to print loud headlines than to write a thoughtful piece.

We might regard that as journalism, but it's not really journalism as much as a mindless aggregation of the now. And in the end, it leaves one addicted and perpetually unsatisfied.