Steve Myers points out the power of the web to send isolated news items across the world bypassing normal news organizations. We should consider this next week in 2301 when we consider the impact of tehnology on the news media and the dissemination of information generally:
Last fall, pastor Terry Jones was all over the news with his threats to burn the Quran on the anniversary of 9/11. Seven months later, he followed through, which you probably learned about after rioters in Afghanistan killed a number of United Nations workers and Afghans.
Jones oversaw the burning of a single Quran on March 20 in a thinly attended event at his small Gainesville, Fla., church. Far from the media spectacle of last September, no local news organizations and just one correspondent for an international wire service covered it.
And yet the reaction in Afghanistan is pretty much what people predicted: condemnations, riots and killing.
The way this news leapfrogged over most of the United States to Afghanistan and Pakistan shows how some stories quietly work their way across the Web until someone or something calls attention to them.
And it raises vexing questions for the media about their power to dampen or amplify a story by deciding whether or how much to cover an event – particularly when they know someone is trying to use them.
