Mr. [Bobby] Maldonado, 26, is one of the dozens of young aides throughout the city who rise before dawn to pore over the news to synthesize it, summarize it and spin it, so their bosses start the day well-prepared. Washington is a city that traffics in information, and as these 20-something staff members are learning, who knows what ”” and when they know it ”” can be the difference between professional advancement and barely scraping by.
“Information is the capital market of Washington, so you know something that other people don’t know and you know something earlier than other people know it is a formulation for increasing your status and power,” said David Perlmutter, the director of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Iowa. “So any edge you can use to get stuff faster, earlier, better or exclusively is very important.”
For Mr. Maldonado, who said that “the information wars are won before work,” that means rising early to browse all of the major newspapers, new polling data, ideological Web sites and dozens of news alerts needed to equip his bosses with the best, most up-to-date nuggets.
Wow, never thought about that subject of the words and their meanings in the creed. Always took them at face value passed down from confirmation and 20+years of reciting them during worship. It was amazing to consider seven parts of the creed and their meaning to me, as well as a platform for discussion with people of different faiths or beliefs. Great article, thanks George and Kendall.
This violent rhetoric in the NYT (‘fight to be well-armed’, ‘information wars’) is uncivil and can only lead to bloodshed.
New York Times: Stop The Incivility Now!
I would agree with you, KMH1 — that a deranged gunman who happened to read that headline would find it the tipping point — [i]if[/i] the words had been written by somebody who were Truly Evil, like Palin or Rush or Beck.
I know about this very well. In 1996, I lived in Arlington, VA, and had a wage job at the Republican National Committee. For two months, I filled in for a staffer assigned to a campaign in VA. Although the Internet was in its infancy, I culled through the news the “old-fashioned way”:
I would arrive at 4:00 then literally cut out newsclips from [i]The New York Times[/i], [i]The Wall Street Journal[/i], [i]The Washington Post[/i], and [i]The Washington Times[/i]. With scotch tape in one hand and the newsclips in the other, I would tape the clips to legal size sheets of paper. The top page always began with “What’s News” from [i]The Wall Street Journal[/i] as a news summary. As I came across editorial cartoons, I would cut those out and save until the Friday edition of “The Friday Funnies.” From time to time, I would use the scotch tape to get the newsprint off my fingers.
After all newsclips were pasted to the master legal sheets of paper, I would run multiple copies through two huge copiers. The first set was on the chairman’s desk by 7:00 a.m. Many other sets were distributed around the building. The remaining sets were left at the front desk for Congressional staffers to pick up.
With an 8 hour shift, I was out of the office by 1:00 p.m. Ah, the good old days.
Actually, the job at the RNC was in 1995. Not that it matters to anybody else. Just want to get my own facts straight.