News Scoops

It's always easier to know how something ought to be done if you don't personally have to do it. Take Newser.

Newser's a service that promises to show you news in a quick, capsule form across a variety of topics. It lets you 'tune' what you see. You can tell it how often to update its display, and you can select whether you want to see just hard news, softer stuff, or material thats somewhere inbetween. The display is nice, with both text and images, some of which offer a capsule summary of the linked page. Not bad.

On the other hand, looking at it five minutes ago, selecting hard news in politics, it told me about Jim Johnson's quitting, and that Tim Russert died, and that Clinton says she's going to back Obama. To copy the phrase I heard for a television news station years ago -- two days ago, that was news. Today, it's history. Why are they showing me this stuff?

There's a grey area, of course. What if the article about Johnson includes more detail about his transgressions, or whether he was pushed or jumped -- would that qualify as current news? I think so. On the other hand, telling me that Russert is dead -- well, he was dead two days ago. Is he deader now? Information about funeral arrangements, or background material on his medical condition doesn't expand the article, doesn't tell me more about the core concept. And seeing articles where Obama says he will be the nomimee -- hello? Will?

I think they could have done better. Then again -- I didn't have to do it, did I? And the view is always good from the sidelines.