In the old days the “news cycle” was the interval between the news media’s pumpings: the paper’s daily print run, the TV station’s morning and evening news programs.
Now that cycle is as short as the TTT: Time To Tweet.
Consider yesterday.
Sitting in an idle subway car at the Alewife station, from which all southbound MBTA Red Line trains commence, twenty minutes passed while I became increasingly late for a lunch date near the Central station, normally about twelve minutes away. Finally the awful PA system started squawking something to passengers about a “police action” at the Harvard station (three down from Alewife, one short of Central) and something else about “delays” and “southbound.” Once it became clear that trains wouldn’t go, I called my wife and got a ride to my lunch.
In the meantime I tweeted What was the “police action” at that kept southbound trains from going through Harvard Square today? #mbta
The first tweet back from @universalhub (Adam Griffin) said @dsearls Bank robber cheaped out and tried to escape on the T rather than hiring a proper getaway car.http://bit.ly/aedzdX
That last link unpacks a story by Adam in UniversalHub (the website) titled Week’s best reason for delays on the Red Line. The central paragraph:
MBTA Transit Police report a Harvard Square bank robbery suspect tried to make good his escape on the Red Line (they don’t say in which direction). He was quickly nabbed, but the station had to be shut to allow for evidence collection.
The linked report is this:
On Friday 7th May 2010, @MBTAPoliceTPSA2 said:
Sorry for delays and inconvenience on Red Line in Cambridge. Bank robbery tried to make escape using Red Line train. He was arrested without incident, but left behind a sea of evidence that had to be properly collected for prosecution purposes. On behalf of Cambridge and Transit Police Departments, and the MBTA, thank you for your patience and understanding today during this public safety incident.
And we thank you too, @MBTAPoliceTPSA2 and @universalhub. Impressive.
The Boston Globe had a story this morning on it. Maybe the TV and radio stations did to. If so I missed it.
Re-draw your own conclusions.
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