About the Afternoon Edition–
I feel there are some meta aspects about how I choose and present my stories that will enhance your understanding of what you are reading and how you can use it.
I am not Magnifico
News Digest was not my idea and I was but a reluctant contributor and still am. To me it is a mere chore and my real challenge is to systematize my data collection to a sufficient extent that I can concentrate on content, presentation, and organization.
Those of you who have actually been able to experience a real programming environment will appreciate the combination of brief, visual c++, and some useful tools like the greenleaf window (character based) libraries.
Pretty easy to do some data management and prototyping; less so using Microsoft tools if you ask me, but the market has spoken.
In any event by limiting myself to one source of pretty uniform content I’m usually able to reduce my hand formatting and data collection times to a little over 2 hours daily for an output of 30 to 60 stories.
The reason I cut it off at 60 is because as JekyllnHyde has observed there is a limit on essay size, though you can always revise and expand through comments and traffic here has not yet reached the extent that you can’t duplicate the effects of pre-posting through pre-organizing (which I have demonstrated on numerous occasions Watson).
Magnifico disagrees with me about the number of stories to present you. He thinks it’s distracting and provides more commentary to focus your attention on particular issues.
I think it’s more important to keep you in touch with events you’re not seeing.
On being a filter
I look at over 500 stories an essay. I choose those I think will interest my audience or outrage them.
One of the reasons I use this source is it’s predictive of the content on your typical dead tree daily.
Out of that I deselect the too short to quote and the done to death. If the take of each wire service is significant I include them all without apology. I also follow the forgotten.
Of the categories I originally included I’m no longer tracking the ‘mosts’ (popular, emailed, and viewed). Science gets it’s own section when I remember I’m supposed to do it (like today). Politics is virtually entirely bullshit and you have to harvest your Business section after 6 pm (or better yet between midnight and 6 am) if you want topicality.
And you run out of room.
Presentation and Organization
Oh for HTML Pagemaker.
The colors are rotated to visually distinguish each story for your eyes and draw your attention! They are not at all related to topic.
To the extent that things are organized it’s mostly by the order in which they were captured and where. Those are the pink headlines and more importantly the source attributions.
Now if I were more efficient I might improve my organization… or not.
How to use this
Hopefully as illumination! Each selection is intended to inspire it’s own essay. Failing that to make you aware of something you’ve not seen elsewhere or remind you of conventional wisdom.
Sometimes I can’t restrain myself, but the commentary is not the message.
Link the source and not me. My reward is the “heh, scooped” I utter whenever Rachel or Keith or any of the Usual Suspects cover my clues.
And don’t think I don’t gloat.
Afternoon Edition is an Open Thread
Now with World and U.S. News. 46 Story Final.
| From Yahoo News Top Stories |
1 Romanian govt falls on no confidence vote
by Mihaela Rodina, AFP
Tue Oct 13, 11:24 am ET
| BUCHAREST (AFP) – Romania’s centre-right government collapsed Tuesday after losing a no-confidence vote, plunging the country further into political turmoil as it seeks to exit a deep recession.
It is the first time since the fall of the communist regime at the end of 1989 that a Romanian government has been toppled in such a manner.
With Romania mired in recession and just over a month to go before presidential elections, a total of 254 parliamentary deputies and senators voted to oust Prime Minister Emil Boc and his Liberal-Democrats and 176 voted against, said parliamentary secretary Valeriu Zgonea. |
