My "Journo-less" Summer...So Far (Part 4 of 8)

This is the fourth installment for my personal journalism-related observations of the current summer season...as promised, whether you remember it or not, this decade's influence on American culture is still evident today.

4. CNN's The Sixties:

Although my own recollection of this 1960-to-1970 period is primarily of its end years and from a very youthful perspective, I have been mostly entertained by this look back on this 10-year transformational period that produced so much news and nostalgia. This series actually started last November when they aired a two-hour special on the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President Kennedy but they premiered it in an announced 10-part episodic order on May 29th (with that earlier shown offering cut down to an hour). The final episode was supposed to air on August 7th but the scheduled end-date was postponed by one week due to the sheer volume of news due to the eruption of the current Gaza Conflict and the downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 in contested airspace over eastern Ukraine on July 17th. It was almost pushed back another seven days when the episode airing on August 7th was interrupted about halfway through by President Obama's announcement of US military intervention inside Iraq due to a quickly developing humanitarian crisis involving the Sunni jihadist group ISIS/ISIL. It apparently was rebroadcast in its entirety for West Coast audiences later that same night and in weekend reruns but, unfortunately, I didn't reprogram my DVR to catch that last half hour.

Soap Box: So It WAS Really About Oil

MSNBC's Rachel Maddow recently hosted a documentary identifying the primary reason why the United States went to war against Iraq

Those who cannot remember history are condemned to repeat it. -- George Santayana

In our 21st century information-saturated society, it has become much harder for people to keep track of the things happening in their personal lives or the world in general. A 2009 book about building excellent healthcare teams cites research that puts the average adult's maximum attention span at about 20 minutes and can be as short as eight seconds if continuous attention is required. The W.W. Grainger Company is currently airing a radio spot that highlights the marketing concept of effective frequency--the number of times a person needs to hear a message before purchasing but before they start to tune it out. That advertisement, as well as the online BusinessDictionary.com puts that number at three and that is, coincidentally, the number of times MSNBC host Rachel Maddow has tried to bring the true story of America's 2003 invasion of Iraq into the nation's collective consciousness after the recent airing of her cable documentary, Why We Did It.

Soap Box: A Minor Mistake Eclipsed Some Major Stories

[NOTE: football and car problems kept me away from the keyboard this past weekend...0 for 2 is not a good start.]

A small military office's inadvertently released email drew my attention away from last week's major media attractions.

In our current 24/7 non-stop, constantly churning information cycle, media proprietors are constantly on the lookout for significant activities to populate their already purchased time or inches or bandwidth in order to attract audiences and keep their financial backers off of theirs. It is a very good week if two high profile and multifaceted stories can generate enough attention to get them through the Monday through Friday period (and provide adequate fodder for the Sunday morning "talking head" shows).  Remarkably, last week had three "buzzworthy" items that dominated those cycles (when the 2014 North American Cold Wave is included) but it was a very small item from my news aggregator that has me ignoring them and dedicating this week's column to highlight its importance.