Speeded up news
- 29 Aug 07, 02:32 PM
President Bush makes a bellicose , President Ahmadinejad reacts, within hours US troops arrest Iranians in Baghdad, and then they are .
It sometimes seems when covering events between Baghdad, Tehran and Washington that normal news timeframes are compressed as news and information fly between capitals with instant action and reaction.
The days of governments and leaders sitting there waiting for despatches from ambassadors and officials to filter through and then slowly and carefully preparing responses which take another age to find their way back again are over.
With 24 hour news you can cut out the middleman as stories whizz around the globe. We've done a decent job of covering this story on أغر؟´«أ½ World, including the first reaction from the Americans acknowledging their error in making the arrests.
But the challenge in this speeded up news environment is to keep analysing what's happening behind these events - President Bush's words spoken, no doubt, with one eye on the upcoming , Iran watching a potential vacuum develop and paying close attention to talk of British withdrawal from southern Iraq. It all links together and sometimes the speed of it takes your breath away.
Jeremy Hillman is editor of the business and economics unit
