Live News Time

I have been holding off on posting these thoughts as in some ways they are rather quotidian when considered against the event that triggered them: the "Boston Bombing". But, perhaps enough time has passed...especially when time is viewed through a live news lens. Time through the live news lens is really an interesting beast...

So, time, we all know it is relative, summed up well by one of my favorite quotes from Deep Blue Sea (1999): Einstein's theory of relativity. Grab hold of a hot pan, a second can seem like an hour. Put your hands on a hot woman, an hour can seem like a second. It's all relative. 

I had however a somewhat strange experience with the relativity of time during the live news coverage in the wake of the Boston bombing. This occurred mostly because of the timing of events and my geographical location in Perth, Australia. It just so happened that the capture of the second suspect, including the live coverage there of, took place during the breakfast TV time slot due to the time differences. I started my viewing experience on the tax-payer funded 24 hour ABC news station which goes to air at the same time across all of Australia - despite the different timezones across Australia. As I was watching this coverage, time seemed incredibly slow. Lots of repeat footage. Lots of live footage of not much going on. Lots of unconfirmed updates that there was nothing to update. Etc, etc. Then they could confirm that the suspect was caught, and so began more of the same.

I eventually got a little bored. Nothing was really happening and time seemed to be going so slow. So I flicked over to one of the major commercial networks breakfast news programs. But these programs don't get broadcast live across the country. And because I live in Perth, which is 2 hours behind the Eastern states where these programs are live, the "live" news coverage of the Boston bombing was anything but live. All of a sudden I realised how 2 measly hours left me with a suspect on the run. All of a sudden the slowness of the ABC's live broadcast seemed ultra fast.

This left me with a kind of uneasy feeling of how this mode of existence really squeezes out the space and time for deep reflection. How, the need to be first with what is going on has us spending more time fixated with the constant instantaneous mundane to ensure we aren't left out of the loop when the exciting hits, rather than pondering the patterns massaging our interaction with the world. Patterns of a world that exist in the now which draw us away from solitude, away from silence, away from inter-personal community, away from deep thought, and away from faith, hope and love.