From Five Days to Five Milliseconds

While packing up some old college textbooks recently, I came across a stunning illustration showing that in Colonial America, it took five days for a piece of news from New York to reach a newspaper reader in Philadelphia. And if the news was coming from Boston, it’d take more than two weeks to reach Philly.

A DELUGE OF NEWS DELIVERED IN MILLISECONDS

I might not have given this image a second thought had I not happened upon it a day after the cavalcade of news that is the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. In 2019, geeks like me are able to remotely follow the news from CES in realtime, rather than weeks, days, hours, or even minutes later.

During CES, anyone interested — no matter how far they are from Las Vegas — can consume literally thousands of images, video clips, social media posts and news articles, with each bit of content arriving instants after the reporter decided something she or he saw at the show was worth sharing.

NEWS DELIVERED BY…ANYONE?

While today’s volume and speed of news delivery would befuddle Ben Franklin, he also would have done a double-take at who is sharing news now. Instead of being limited to professional staffs doing the news gathering and writing, today’s news comes from a hugely diverse mix of reporters — some are part of journalistic organizations and some have built huge audiences simply by using social media tools and being their own curious selves.

And, of course, this (small-d) democratic newsgathering happens everywhere today — it’s not just CES. From seismic political events to mobile device launches to happenings captured by passersby.

That’s why any thoughtful communicator should pause every so often to do an outlet tune-up. Are your programs reaching the right mix of newsgatherers and, if not, how can you expand that list? Are there any new voices or outlets that might be interested in sharing your content? These questions may be daunting, but they are essential: After all, each different outlet you reach means more surface area for your message to connect.

Just as we gape at the molasses-slow spread of news 229 years ago in Colonial times, so too will future earthlings be amazed by our current news status quo. And while it’s impossible to predict what it might look like, it’s a safe bet to say that newsgathering in the year 2248 will be insanely cool — and even more markedly different than the gap between 1790 and today. Totally sucks that I won’t be around to see it.

Reach out to FleishmanHillard Boston, your Boston public relations agency.