The "news lag" factor ... why?

We were out doing some running around today and listening to the local news radio station (WTOP, 1500 AM out of DC). They had a blurb that started "President (sic) Bush is No Hottie" and went on to do a short story (30 seconds, maybe) about the Esquire online poll showing our Prancing President Precious has no sex appeal.

This was just today's evidence that the broad news media are way behind the curve. We all know that this story was in DU's LBN forum ... what .... midweek?

Time and again I've noticed this ... whether on radio, local teevee news, network teevee news, or even the cable stations. Frequently they're days behind on so many stories that break but aren't "urgent" news ("urgent" being: "Car Fire on the Whitehurst Freeway" ... "Plane Crashes in East Bumfuck" .... "The Dow Down a Gazillion Points" ..... "Michael Jackson Apparently Has a Penis and Apparently Knows How to Use it Inappropriately" .... etc.).

LBN news stories generally come from major sources and wire services. Why the lag between the stories our fellow DUers find so easily and then post and the broader media being behind the curve?

What's up with that ...... ? :shrug:

They have time to fill, so they pull something from within the last few days.

the last thing MSM wants to be is ahead of a curve, for fear of a backlash. They'd rather wait, as in the case of this "sex appeal" story, until they're positive there'll be no major negative return before they release a potentially inflammatory article -- even with such relatively innocuous pieces such as this, which might stir at best a backlash only from Smirk's faithful followers, those who swooned when he strutted on the aircraft carrier with his sock.

At least, that's one take I have on it.

I've surely made no formal study of this, but I listen to this particular station almost always when I'm in the car. They've been reasonably fair as a news source, even through the rightward tilt of all media. They're just sorta starting to lean ... just a bit.

But the stories they seem to "lag" are all kinda like this ... background stuff, kinda. Guckert/Gannon was one they waited a few days to mention. Prancing President Precious' Plummeting Polls are another one. Delay crap is another, although they're only hours to a day or so late on them.

But yeah ... it is almost as if they wait for some sort of "permission" to run them.