DISQUS

paisley · 1 year ago

excellent reporting!

JanDawson · 1 year ago

This isn't new with internet reporting. I worked in the photography department at the Reuters news agency in London during the early 1990s while I was a student, and they had files ready and waiting to go for the deaths of aging celebrities, mostly notably the Queen Mother. They were desperate to be first with the news, especially since they mostly acted as a resource for the main newspapers and broadcasters and competed with the likes of AP, AFP and others. I wondered whether anything ever accidentally got sent out on these figures ahead of their actual demise, and sure enough a few months later one news source (not Reuters) accidentally sent out their pre-written "The Queen Mother is dead" story rather prematurely. This was in the days well before the true rise of the Internet. The Internet has perhaps accelerated things a little but hasn't changed much at a fundamental level...