"From statehouses to state fairs on Tuesday, Republican incumbents and challengers unleashed an almost unified line of criticism against the president days after he forcefully defended the construction of a $100 million Islamic center two blocks from the site of the 2001 terror attacks"
Wall Street Journal - August 17, 2010
Craig McMurtry - ABC News - Debra Burlingame, who lost her brother in the 9/11 attacks, is adamant the Islamic cultural centre will never be built.
"Saudi Arabia has partnered with this Imam on other programs. Saudi Arabia, one of the biggest funders of 9/11 where 15 of the hijackers came from, this man and this mega mosque will never happen there, no," she said. Yahoo 7 News
From the WSJ to Yahoo News, this debate has taken over every new outlet you can find. It would be one thing to dominate the three old line news outlets (NBC, ABC, CBS, FOX?, Tulsa World?). But the Inernet? Yahoo News, the bastion of journalism, was full of it too.
How do you find an issue that can do this? Easy, the "issue" is like a search and destroy topic. News stories have always developed a life and behavior of their own, but they were filtered through a much narrower neck of the information bottle. The internet opened a much larger number of outlets, like this blog. It can make a story seem bigger than the same topic used to seem. Its analogous to the three mainstream outlets breaking, thirty years ago, breaking in to game shows every 30 seconds with an update. Or, like a weather event in Tulsa today.
Now, the New York governor has said he will offer state land in a different location for the Mosque. Did the shrill nature of news coverage of this event move the governor to act? Did the public outcry (private citizens speaking out) move government to act? Did multiple politicians acting on their own initiative, bring or will bring, this issue to a palatable conclusion? The huge growth in the number and variety of "news media" options has created an instantaneous flow of information for the reader/surfer. Opinions can be formed much faster, sometimes out stripping the ability of politicians to react. Obama's explanation was an example. He had to clarify on a weekend.
Is more better? Maybe just the fact that politicians have to pay closer attention is the biggest benefit of all.
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