![]() There were the initial reports of intelligence agencies confirming Russian interference and President Obama’s reaction. They also remind anyone who thinks of the past year as one long, uninterrupted story about Russian meddling and collusion that coverage was actually kind of episodic. Looking back at the Washington Post and New York Times’ Russia-related push alerts is like reading a conspiratorial thriller, with unexpected twists and explosive revelations but no clear ending in sight. “The Russia story” hung over this year like no other. Bishop explained: “We’ll have Editor A saying, ‘Please, just send the alert, send the alert!’ And Editor B’s going, ‘No, we can make this better.’ And it’s aggravating for us that we’re sitting there looking at our lock screens,” knowing an alert on the same story from another paper could pop up at any moment. But editors at both papers also acknowledged that they keep rivals’ push alerts activated on their personal devices, which adds to the sense of urgency as they’re composing a notification. Of course both push teams said that accuracy is the foremost concern. Sometimes, a Post notification goes out before the related story is even live. The Post’s Muggeridge said: “We measure the speed of all of our alerts, and we track exactly what our competitors are doing.” This is in keeping, she added, with the heavy emphasis on data and metrics that the paper has adopted under owner Jeff Bezos. “Everyone’s core instinct is to beat the Post,” the Times’ Bishop told me. When it comes to breaking news, though, the two titan organizations are in a constant race with each other-one where push alerts are a part of the scoop. ![]() ![]() Another loose-lipped senior official is coming for you, and you will engage. Maybe you’ve sworn off CNN and taken up a hobby. All of these things that toggled between pleasure and nuisance before Trump won are now insistent and suffocating, coming at us with such speed and ferocity that it feels impossible to escape. There’s Facebook and Slack and texts from your mom that say I’m just sick about what’s happening to this country. There’s cable news: Shows that used to cover multiple stories over several segments now just roll on, hour to hour, with a rotating cast yelling about what the president said that day above an urgent chyron also yelling about what the president said that day. There’s Twitter, and the minor panic of checking it when you are in line at the grocery store or commuting home from the office-the dawning realization that Something Happened, the frantic search to determine what that something is and whether that something actually matters. Of course, it’s more than the push alerts.
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