When I was a child we had the big three networks: ABC, CBS and NBC. News came on at noon and at 5:30PM. Anything that happened overnight had to wait until noon and anything that happened after noon was on the evening news. This sounds so simplistic now, but it worked. Now we have more channels than I can count and we have information available 24 hours a day, but do we really have enough real news to fill the 24 hour beast? No, we don’t so we fill it up with stuff. We elevate the trivial and make it news. We jump through the hoops of people who have a clear agenda. How did this Shirley Sherrod debacle happen? How did Sherrod get thrown under the bus? She is a victim of the 24 hour news cycle. There is an old saying “get it first but, first get it right” and this antiquated notion does not fit into the 24 hour need to know or need to report culture. Is this a teachable moment? What have we learned? That question is yet to be answered, but in the time it took me to write this some new lie or false truth is probably being posted, tweeted or reported because we have got to keep feeding the 24 hour beast or we might really have to do some real investigating before we rushed to judgment.
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