About a month ago, my neighbor Holly came over with her brand-spankin' new iPhone, and I'm not using the term "spankin'" lightly. That phone kicked my phone in the ass.
My cell phone is lame. It doesn't have a camera, it has stupid ring tones, and it doesn't connect to the Internet. The coolest thing about my phone is that it's blue and I don't even care because I wanted a pink one. I was scarlet with shame as I chicken-pecked her number into my address book and shuffled off pathetically to try and text someone. Anyone.
What is this obsession with new media? The super-charged connectivity of today's online world has altered our news-getting methods considerably.
I want my news Daddy and I want it NOW!Photo: imdb.com
Are we getting carried away? Audiences are demanding news as shiny and edgy as their iPhone and news media are rushing to assuage the "news now" frenzy.
The content of news media isn't changing but our expectations are and that's where this new media revolution gets significant.
We're captivated by immediacy. Our attention span has been whittled away to a nanosecond and we put as much stock in the convenience of our media as we do in the content. As news stations compete to post the latest story at breakneck speed, we're right there clocking them.
Timeliness, while a journalistic virtue, should never override the value of content but when the new media on the market makes instantaneous information standard, we're trained to expect nothing short of immediate. As for me, I'm okay waiting for my news, even if it means I won't be reading it on Holly's iPhone.
That would be an image used by permission from Willie Wonka? So are we all spoiled children...? You could have put a finer point on it in the text  tho literally mentioning the chocolate factory is not necessary.
Kelly, you say we've put "as much stock in the convenience of media as the content. We can't have out Willy Wonka chocolates and eat them too, so what's getting lost in this need for speed era of news journalism?