This is a relatively recent phenomenon, which I think really started with CNN during the first Gulf War. Before that you had the newspaper, which by its nature had at least a several-hour cooling period, and nightly news, which only needed to cough up half an hour.

When there were critical happenings in real time, we had “special bulletins” and “live coverage” that interrupted programming.

Now there are multiple cable and other news sources that have to deliver news all the time, and if they can’t find it, they’ll deliver crap, or just make something up.

Unfortunately, I believe our “news” networks have discovered that crap sells.

“Hey, if the other guys said Giffords is dead, it must be true.”

“If I don’t interview this terrified six-year-old, somebody else will do it.”

“It’s all I’ve got right now. Screw confirmation–run with it before the other guys do.”

I watched enough Katrina “coverage” to put me off cable news–all networks–for good.

That, and I discovered I had the tools now to find out things better than they could.

Agents on scene are in the middle of the action, but often have their hands full and can only see a tiny bit of it. Back at Headquarters, the data flows in and a big picture slowly forms, it is fuzzy and out of focus, but they still have to make sense of it and they are always behind and under pressure to do SOMETHING.

And of course, the enemy is doing everything he can to confuse and mislead you, and even if he isn’t, you have to assume he is and act accordingly.

This phenomenon doesn’t just happen in a fast-breaking event, either. Historians are aware of this process working on very long time scales, as subsequent eras re-evaluate the record and interpret it using the filters of their own experience and knowledge, and yes, their prejudices and intellectual fashions.

We like to think there is only one truth, but we cannot deny there are myriad observers and many contradictory points of view, and consensus will decide what the truth is, not what actually happened. And I am not talking about Rovian reality-crafting here, I’m talking about honest, competent observers doing their best. The ones closest to the action (in space and time) see the most detail, the ones farthest away, see the context and the motivations and fill in the blanks. They pay a price for seeing the overall design, they miss the individual direct experiences of the event.

Its easy to be a Monday morning quarterback, but its hard being out there on the field, especially right after the ball is snapped. And especially if there is an enemy eager to muddy the waters and take unfair advantage of any misstep.