Friday, July 15, 2011

Cadge & Release™
Information Wants to be Free

While waiting for the lights to come back on, your LakeCountyEye has been passing the time playing Internet games ... on the LakeCountyEye nuclear-powered iPad ... over at the Zion nuclear-powered Muni Wi-Fi hotspot.

As readers of this blog are cagily aware, Cadge & Release™ is the hottest Internet search-engine game ...
Cadge & Release
where contestants are challenged to match a MSM Internet news story against an unattributed press release or wire service item.

This week's winning Cadge & Release™ entry comes from frequent commenter, OldWeirdHerald:

The Cadge:

DART
Forty-five years after the federal Freedom of Information Act was enacted, mountains of unfilled requests from the public and the press remain, with some of the oldest stretching back 20 years. A newly completed analysis by the public-interest group National Security Archive at The George Washington University found the oldest request still pending at the National Archives dates to May 1991. The Defense Intelligence Agency still hasn't completed one it received in August 1993. The Air Force's oldest dates to April 1995. Among the laggards are the official libraries established by former presidents. The George H.W. Bush Presidential Library still hasn't finished a 1998 request for documents about the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 that blew up over Lockerbie, Scotland. Also outstanding is a 2009 request filed with the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library for material about the 1965 coup staged by Joseph Mobuto in the Congo. LBJ signed the act into law on July 4, 1966.

Darts & Laurels
The Release:
Washcall: Freedom of Information Act requests drag on
WASHINGTON - Forty-five years after the federal Freedom of Information Act was enacted, mountains of unfilled requests from the public and the press remain, with some of the oldest stretching back 20 years. A newly completed analysis by the public-interest group National Security Archive at The George Washington University found the oldest request still pending at the National Archives dates to May 1991. The Defense Intelligence Agency still hasn't completed one it received in August 1993. The Air Force's oldest dates to April 1995. Among the laggards are the official libraries established by former presidents. The George H.W. Bush Presidential Library still hasn't finished a 1998 request for documents about the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 that blew up over Lockerbie, Scotland. Also outstanding is a 2009 request filed with the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library for material about the 1965 coup staged by Joseph Mobuto in the Congo. LBJ signed the act into law on July 4, 1966.
X...X...
scrippsnews

OldWeirdHerald comments that when you are a news gathering outfit and happen to be situated 50 miles away from any news, the press release is indispensable for one's bread and butter.

Operatives are reminded that there are other sources on information to be had on the Internet besides your Facebook Wall. Who knows, that buried news item may make you next week's big winner!

2 comments:

Bystander said...

"News-Sun Staff Report" in the byline is code for "We took this directly from a press release and are pretending we wrote it." Those who submit press releases don't mind - that way their information and quotes get disseminated verbatim. But readers may be fooled into thinking that newspapers still have staff who research and report stories. Not too much of that going on any more.

Barney Baxter said...

hi Bystander,

Yeppers, I think it's called it log rolling.

-BB-