Mark Glaser at Online Journalism Review writes about how newspapers reacted to the Saddam story breaking at the worst time possible. Mainly it was about getting the sleep out of their eyes. One editor describes how the Web changes his news diet.
“On a big breaking story like this, the computer screen becomes for me the equivalent of the old newsroom wire-service machine,” Powers said via e-mail. “I don’t sit there staring at it the whole time — that’s what the television is for. But I do wander over to the computer every now and then, for a text version of the story. Text — sentences and paragraphs that I can read for myself, at my own pace — is still more trustworthy to me than any anchorperson.”
I had two thougths when I saw the headlines at nytimes.com Sunday morning: Got to update the blog, and thank God for working in features, which takes my name off the A-list for people who get called in when big news breaks on their day off. I’d have come if called, of course, like I did on 9/11, but it was nice to have my Sunday remain a Sunday.
(Link via I want Media.)