News About Saddam’s Capture
(Just so I’m not the only blogger who didn’t write about Saddam’s capture. Appreciate this: it’s taken me almost all day and a few hours cross-country skiing to figure out how to write something about it that would be suitable for my blog.)
On Sunday mornings when I wake up, a local National Public Radio affiliate is usually playing Weekend Edition Sunday. This morning, they aired a BBC talk show instead. I heard a brief blip about Saddam Hussein’s capture, then the talk show began taking calls from people venting their feelings about Saddam, Iraq, and the American occupation. I felt let down because having just woken up to the news, I wanted to hear the details. And I wanted to hear them ala Weekend Edition Sunday. I put on music instead of listening to the talk show and begrudingly decided to listen to Weekend Edition Sunday on Monday when I can access it via a T1 line.
I went to the BBC’s Web site to see if they had material about Saddam’s capture and sure enough they did. It didn’t like my browser, so I posted a link on the tag line of my blog and didn’t read any of it. I picked up the Sunday paper and didn’t see anything on the front page about the situation, so the announcement must have come after press deadlines. About twenty minutes later, I decided to watch a videotape. I was surprised when I turned the television on and saw several stations broadcasting news about Saddam’s capture. I suppose I’m so used to getting my news via the radio, the Internet, a daily newspaper, and the 11 o’clock news that I completely forgot that television news during the day was an option. I watched what was being aired on a few channels and remembered why I often forget that television is a news source, so I gave up. I figure I’ll learn about it from a friend who’s a soldier and by doing some Web browsing when I can get on a T1 line.
This analysis of news-gathering behavior reminded me of the Pew Study about news reading habits that came out in the fall. I remember wondering about how radio ranked in people’s news-intaking habits, since that’s primarily where I get my news.
