Tuesday, April 27, 2004

Alright, although sometimes bloggers are occasionally on top of the news and every once in a rare while scoop a story before other media, and even though they are even quite often up with the play, posting critique on stories of the day, that is not always the case. Here is an example of (largely volontary) web-media struggling to keep up with the enormous amount of constantly changing info out there. Sometimes there is a sense these things are later posted merely to keep a record of them, rather then to be current.

This report from Voices in the Wilderness mentioning refugees leaving Fallujah was published April 26, written several days earlier, April 23, and originally reported weeks earlier by various other sources;

April 26 2004; Estimates of total refugees vary, but most reports suggest at least 60,000 Fallujans -- or about a quarter of the city's population -- have fled Fallujah for Baghdad and other cities...

April 23 2004; same story as above, different website.

April 14 2004; As many as 60,000 - one fifth of the city - may have poured into Baghdad since Friday...

April 12 2004; More than 60,000 women and children fled the city during a brief ceasefire on Friday but the US blocked any men of military age from leaving...

April 11 2004; Lt. Col. Gregg Olson, who has overseen the military activity in Fallujah, said Saturday. "I like to think that the 60,000 people who left...

I call this type of publishing "news-leak". No, not the scandalous leaks that spring out of clandestine dealings and whisper "government intrigue, state secret" in your ear. No. These leaks are the slow spreading damp from old and warn out water mains, the mundane seepage from overburdened sewerage systems, the dull drip drip of news we may or may not have heard last week and frankly are not surprised by when we do hear it. These are the news items that websites with names like "Democracy Now" and "Christian Science Monitor" and "Occupation Watch" studiously, collect, collate and preserve, while the refugees dissolve into the landscape, absorbed by relatives and friends.

Update; also known as "News-Echo".

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