Re: Old Habits Die Hard

[mwaters@mail.wesleyan.edu (Martin J. Waters)]

>Chuck Igo wrote:
<snip>
> even as we've "threaded" recently, the AP is still refered to as "the wire"
>(although, thanks to their major outage resulting from the attempted
>downloading of new software, they're now providing most of their news
>services via internet connections)

        The AP calls its website that carries news reports "The Wire." I
think the term has big staying power. They started sending news by
satellite by around the early 1980s, anyway, and the term seems to be in as
much use as ever. Plus, the internet actually does involve wires, up until
now, anyway, lthough, of course, so do satellite feeds on the two ends.

        I just remembered with a LOL how some of the newspapers back then,
especially the ones still owned by the local yokel families who still had
that childish pouting thing against the local radio and TV stations,
refused to take those first dishes. This was because the broadcasters were
going to get their feeds from the same dish. I think some publishers with
enough clout got dishes but refused to let the local broadcasters get
feeds. The AP policy then, with the very expensive 20-foot dishes, was
normally to put the dish at the newspaper and feed the other locals from
there by land line.
        So, eventually you'd have one newspaper around somewhere still
holding out, or one radio station still getting the old slow wire because
of this. As the AP introduced services like ultra high-speed stock tables
that only were available on the satellite, the hold-outs eventually gave
in.
     Meanwhile, by next year, we'll all be walking around wearing headgear
that consists of earphones with really small satellite dishes sticking up
that swivel to stay with the signal :)