Monday, July 30, 2007

Katrina=News=York Information not News

It would beeasy to be angry. Listening to BBC Radio 4's Today Programme an item, finally a piece (doh!) on the floods in New Orleans, Louisanna two years on and how victims of those floods are still suffering.

There are parrallels with what's happened in the UK e.g. York and Oxford. Indeed there are lessons to be shared between two different peoples touched by the same disaster, albeit the rage of New Orleans' flood arrived by differing traumatic circumstances.

At this point sit down and ask what the purpose of news is? Is it merely a commodity to race our insatiable appetiite for information. Is it public service? When it wants News does this and appeals very well. Editorial teams will judge what news items merit this special quality. Otherwise they are transient affairs - often for those not in the heart of the storm.

This is where broadband or news with space to spare ( 24 hour) has the potential to revolutionise our precept of news and its 21st century role.

If you're a resident of the aformentioned polar communities, there's information to be shared. The post- effect of floods bring on new challenges say the experts and I daren't say people could draw strength, hope, navigate their individual lives, but collective sufferings by having a continuous passage of sustained information, which in are modern parlance, unfortunately, no longer qualifies as NEWS.

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