TightWind is written by Kyle Baxter. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Matt Thompson on the need for context in news:

It turns out that in order for information about things like the public option and budget reconciliation to be useful to you, you need a certain amount of systemic knowledge to be able to parse it. You need an intellectual framework for understanding health care reform before the episodic headlines relating to health care reform make any sense.

…

Right now, the most common way the news industry attempts to impart systemic knowledge is by wedging it into our episodic reports. We’ll give you tons of stories on Congresspeople sneezing something that sounds like “reconciliation” and every time, a little ways in, we’ll say something like, “Reconciliation is a procedural tactic originally designed to speed adoption of budget resolutions through Congress.”

Absolutely right. He’s speaking about this at SXSW. If you’re lucky enough to be there, sounds like you should check out his panel.