Setting the Record Straight. Fast.
In the suburban hamlet where I live we have an election coming up.
Late last week the local elections commission made the boneheaded move of deciding that several candidates were spending too much money on themselves.
Thing is: in the United States you can spend as much money on your own candidacy as your big heart and little wallet can afford.
Don't just ask me. You can look it up: (see Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1 (1976), Wikipedia entry or decision, courtesy of the Federal Elections Commission.
I sent a letter, electronically, to the elections board Sunday. By Monday morning, there's a response from the City Attorney confirming receipt of the letter and that the matter has been added to the agenda of the upcoming election board meeting this week.
Justice... speedy justice... has a chance.
But wait. Seems the local newspaper reported the news about the elections board's decision. Candidates are being besmirched!
Quick to the newspaper's website to lodge a comment.
Forward the letter from the city attorney to the writer/reporter.
Look! It's a prompt response from the writer/reporter saying thanks, and that she'll update the article online. Meet up at the city meeting later in the week? Sure.
Total time putting all this in motion? About 16 minutes of my time on a Sunday morning. And about four minutes later in the week.
On reflection, we see an example of the gears of bureaucracy keeping pace with the pace of journalism, which is keeping pace with the real pace of life.
But there's more. The article reporting the original boneheaded move doesn't live in isolation--the comment thread is an integral part of the story. In a more semantically relevant future, this article will be connected to follow-on stories that give the first draft of history of what happens next. We're not quite there yet--the online tools are still a bit crude for that, but it's coming.
The 2020 search results of The New York Times--or even the little hamlet's newspaper where I live--will show the entire thread in context. And that will help make sense for everybody. Fast.
