The era of the newsboy standing in the street attracting attention with his brazen cry is long gone, but the cultural memory that attached to those two words lingers. As does that of the ‘news’ which I will propose is equally past. At one time in my lifespan, I know and have watched the phenomenon, the family gathered in front of the flickering screen at 6:00 pm sharp to watch ‘the news.’ The words of Walter Cronkite, or Dan Rather, were gathered in like pearls to be relied on and gossiped about at the dinner table or workplace.
That’s done and gone. My kids never saw this, and I suspect a large number of their peers don’t, either. Evening news is so last century. Now is the time of blazing-fast internet, where the news is tweeted while it’s happening, and even before it’s done, is being discussed with varying levels of veracity worldwide. Once there was a slow deliberation to news, savoring each tidbit that washed up on the shores of our nation with the arrival of the fast mail-clipper (and this isn’t just America, it’s a global phenomenon) because it was costly, rare, and worth as much as treasure.