Monday, April 24, 2006

The Future of the News Media, Part 2

Last time we examined the business of TV news. Today we look at what's news and what's not.

Today, Yahoo has the following headline in it's "In the News" box.

Bin Laden says U.S. waging war on Islam

Is that news? Yahoo rated it as one of the top 8 stories in the world. Even our friends at stoptheaclu posted about it. Here's something I'll bet you didn't know that is much more important.

India and the US have been holding successively larger and larger joint naval exercises. In 2005, they performed cross-deck flight operations with US and Indian aircraft carriers. That's where aircraft from one nation land and take off from the other's carriers.

A US Seahawk helicopter landing on the deck of the Indian destroyer INS Mysore.

Here's some key sections from the story Joint Indo-US Naval Exercises Continue in the Arabian Sea in Daiji World.
The Malabar 2005 exercises began...INS Viraat and USS Nimitz are the major warships participating in it...

"We had seven seven such exercises in past. This will help in improving naval ties between two countries,'' said Captain S S P Chima, INS Viraat's commanding officer.

"Both the sides match skills. The warships like Nimitz and Viraat participating in the exercise indicates their seriousness,'' said Capt Chima.

The exercises attains significance as first time fighters of two nations are operating together. The Indo-US exercise had anti-submarine exercises and boarding exercises which are mandatory to counter terrorism.

The naval officers talking about the exercise said,``both Indians and Americans have benefitted mutually from the exercises conducted in the first phase. Particularly beneficial were the gains from the first ever interaction between fighter aircraft operating from the aircraft carriers Viraat and Nimitz.''

Besides various other exercises, fuelling of INS Mysore and USS Chafee by INS Aditya, a tanker, was also conducted.
The bold above is mine.

That's an Indian tanker refueling a US ship.

Combine the Anglo countries of the US, England and Australia with India and you get a very formidable group. This is a big development in geopolitics and will have long term benefits for the US.

Did you know about it? Yahoo told you about bin Laden's zillionth home movie where he rambles on about crusaders and zionists, but have they been keeping you up to date on how we're getting along with one billion Indians?

India is up to speed on this. This is something very important to them. I did a Yahoo search on "joint us indian naval exercises" and many of my hits came from the Indian press. If globalization hits the news media, the Indian press will be able to impact the people at Yahoo. That might be coming.

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