What are you talking about, no 24-7 internet?
I've been on a 24-7 internet since the late 80s, when dial-up BBSes were all there was.
In 2001, my computer was on 24-7, and connected to IRC servers, where I communicated with people around the world - 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

When 9/11 happened, I had already heard warnings about it on IRC, because I helped run the #newyork channel on DALnet. There were foreigners coming in there making threats, and we notified the proper channels about it, as well.

You should check your facts before you post something like this.

Exactly, I was thinking the same thing while reading this article.

I was at work in New Jersey during the attack. We watched everything unfold on news websites & discussed it in instant messages and on message boards as it unfolded.

How old are you? Were you like...four years old in 2001 that you didn't know there was an internet back then?

I think what he may have meant was for the average user. We all have much more constant use and access than we did 8 years ago, when 24-7 internet was the province, for the most part, of the people like you who were keeping it alive and waiting for the rest of us to catch up. (Thanks, by the way.)

An interesting article!

Robert,

I think you are missing the overall point of this piece. Alexia is referring to the fact that the general population as a whole was not connected 24/7, specifically through mobile (internet accessible)devices. Sharing news person to person in real time without having to be in front of a computer is the message here. Technically you are correct, but digging a little too deep I think.

I think the article was referring to large scale 24/7 internet tools. The mass majority of the public were not using IRC chat rooms.

IRC is nowhere near the same as the options we have at our disposal today.

Robert your an idiot.

Good piece! I think it's important not to *underestimate* how well the Web served people on and after 9/11, though. The failures were more of the infrastructure than of the tools for communication and self-expression.

As I documented in Say Everything, it's quite likely that a blogger named James Marino was the first person to post an account of the attack online on his own blog. He saw the planes hit from his office window.

Hey Robert and Series, are you incapable of reading and thought? The story is about the age of Twitter and facebook updates and having video cameras on our cell phones. Or did you have that in "the 80s" or even 2001, you nutbags.

Learn to read before throwing bombs like that.

I was hooked up like Robert in 2001, but back then the geeks had the hookup, not the average American. It was a tiny percentage and far from being the voice of truth.
Had Twitter been around back then and had everyone been hooked up like today, Twitter and the internet in many places would have crashed for sure.
Michael Jackson's death did that already for a litte bit.
I wished that social media had been around the way it is today. We would have less confusion now in regards to all of the conspiracy theories floating around.

Mike Dammann
http://www.firetown.com

I remember this day too. I was 15 back then and I kept rushing from living room (where the tv was) to my room (where my computer was). I was exchanging info with ppl through msn and icq. Having an internet connection wasn't anything out of the ordinary even back then.
but they sure got a point with the pics and videos.

Soldiers in the frontline never know what's going on. Their view consists of what's around them. One has to step back as a General does to see things clearly.

So, if millions of people recorded their immediate experience during another 9/11-type situation the end result would be confusion at best, chaos and panic at worst.

It would take a few sources that we all trust - and share as a source - to put into perspective what was really going on in such a confused crisis.

Thus, contrary to expectations, the likes of CNN and the BBC could become more important next time around (let's up there's no next time) than during 9/11. Hence I predict, CNN would tap into social media and benefit from them and be enhanced by them, but not replaced or marginalized by SM.

Rather than saying we didn't have a 24-7 internet back then, the article should have said something like "most people weren't 24-7 internet users". The media is supposed to be a source of truth, not of assumption. Those that made fun or verbally attacked me and the others that agreed with me have shown their ignorance, especially the "anonymous" person saying "your an idiot". That person needs to go back to school and learn the difference between your and you're. *shakes head*

Honestly, my comment was stating that there WAS a 24-7 internet - not that everyone was using it. Some of you I can agree with, saying I may have been digging a little too deep and whatnot, but to say I was out and out wrong, is foolish. My statement was 100% correct. It's articles like this that make the media look bad, for not knowing the facts. That's the whole point I was trying to make. Sad that some people only see what they want. *shrugs*

Robert - you're right. You're not an idiot... you're just an arrogant jerk. *rolls eyes*

REALTIME 24/7 internet obviously doesn't mean the quaint thing we were using back in the day. (I was using these as well and I had no problem understanding CLEARLY what the reporter meant.) *shakes head*

Way to major on the minors and try, unsuccessfully I might add, to turn this into proof of shoddy journalism. The only thing that's embarrassing is the fact that you don't get it. *looks at the poor old geek with pity*

Robert, re-read the damn article. "REALTIME 24-7 internet".

"When 9/11 happened, I had already heard warnings about it on IRC, because I helped run the #newyork channel on DALnet." -- and YOU and 40 other dweebs new about it. As opposed to millions who would have known about today in the same timespan.

Tell me, do you understand what Alexia is talking about when writing "REALTIME 24-7 internet"? A hint: it doesn't mean your cable modem is plugged in 24/7.

this should say the age before cell phones...

everybody was following 9-11 on CNN.com and other websites and blogs...

I think people need to stop arguing over the term realtime internet. It's the same internet now as it always was, we just have different services that are used specifically for the perpose of posting 'up to date' information. It's a pointless argument- in letter, Robert is right, in the intent, yes he's missing the point of the article.

We had 'realtime' services and cell phones (even with cameras in japan) back in 2001, not enough people were using these things to have crashed servers during an event like this, nor would news have spread NEARLY as fast due to their existence. I think that is the main point here.

hlk, good point and exactly what I meant. My main news source for 9/11 WAS the net.

If the meaning of the article was that we weren't all mobile yet...okay, I can see the truth in that. Mobile web was in it's infancy. The WWW sure wasn't though. The web was mainstream by then and post-IRC. And I am pretty sure we did have camera phones by then.

The article misses the mark.

Robert Piazza needs to step back from the keyboard, step into some natural sunlight and LIGHTEN THE FUCK UP. Dude, not everyone was chilling in chat-rooms in 1993 trying to find reliable X-files plot line sources

pretty sure the U.S. got commercial mobile camera phones in 02, Japan in 01. Either way, that and whether or not the web itself was mainstream at that time is beside the point.

It's just about the fact that the sheer number of people that USE technologies like twitter, facebook, and multimedia phones etc is so much higher than it was then that when 'major' events happen, news & data (pics, video etc) travel FAR faster than it would have back then, and there's just more of it. You had blogs and stuff back then so you still DID have the more individual take on things emerging, but it's not nearly the same as having so many people with multimedia phones that you're bound to have SOMEONE if not many people with those tools who are present when the event took place. It seems to me that focusing on what we did/didn't have in 2001 is just purposely missing the point just to be an ass to the author or pat yourself on the head for how tech savvy you were in 2001. We're all very impressed...

I think the point that the author was making when they referenced 24/7 Internet is the fact that people, today, now have easy access no matter where they are. Yes, 24/7 Internet access was available back in 2001 but not if you decided to leave your house as most of us do on a daily basis.

Like the author said, if that event happened today you would have had pictures and video FROM the scenes, not just people talking about it online far away from the events. That's what they meant by 24/7 access.

Alexia, thanks for asking the question. Twitter + Topic A = lame article usually, but this year it's a timely question whether our social networks, embraced by CNN and Fox and recently overhauled to provide nearly real-time updates among millions of non-technical laypeople, could have changed anything.

On the day of the attacks, CNN.com was unreachable for many of us for hours after the collapse of the towers. I worked at Wired magazine's office here in San Francisco at the time. As the house Internet nerd, I was ordered to call a few New York and D.C. reporters and tell them to hit scripting.com and wherever else I'd found that was still serving, wherever they could get messages and photos from the ground in New York.

But you're right: Things have changed a lot.

When the next shocking event strikes -- whether it's a terrorist attack or that big goddamn earthquake destined for us here in Sodom and Gomorrah, California -- there'll be people caught in the middle with only an iPhone for comfort.

I personally think we're going to get less multimedia citizen journalism than Clay Shirky would have you believe. Most people, as I've seen firsthand at fires and car crashes, don't kick into capture-the-moment mode. But it only takes one, or a few.

Suggested viewing on the topic: Cloverfield, last year's J.J. Abrams movie that pretends to be a personal videotape of a wonderfully heavy-handed metaphorical attack on NYC by an unkillable monster. There's always that one guy who can't stop filming everything, no matter how dangerous the situation. I love people like that. Next time around, we'll have more of them on the scene.

But here's a counterpoint for you, my SoCal Twitter pal: More videos shot by victims will make us feel more connected to our common humanity or whatever it is we seek, but they'll also make future disasters a lot more horrific to us onlookers. I predict a day when I'm afraid to reload Twitter, even as I do it.

- Paul Boutin
occasional New York Times social media freelancer

It's 2009 and cellphones STILL do not work on planes.

I too was well connected in 2001.

I was living on the West Coast. I remember waking up and trying to read the morning news online. cnn.com, abcnews.com, and pretty much every other site I tried to reach was dead.

I could hit local servers and sites with 'fluff.' But it was as if all the news based services were flooded to a crawl. Before 'knowing' what had happened, I knew, "Something" had happened.'

I received a phone call a few minutes later from my girl-friend telling me to put on the television. I spent the rest of the day using my knowledge of IRC, USENET, and other such tools to track down loved ones and friends in the region and keep people updated with what I could find.

-Andrei Freeman
Social Network Participant since 1979: BBS

on 9/11 I was in DC, outside of Dulles airport at the "Streaming Media Summit", where the folks on the IT side at Spinner and AOL were hosting a confab for all of AOL TimeWarner folks -- including a fair number from CNN.com

The CNN.com guys were like a SWAT team -- their site was under load like they had never seen it, and they did a *lot* to try and keep their site up - from replacing the normal page with a static one with one photo, and no ads, to putting every resource at AOL/TW on the problem.

None of the major AOL sites were down that day -- just inundated and slow beyond usefullness. Today, I think the sheer variety of places to go has come a long way, and we've tipped to where the majority of people will find out about big events will be the net

Robert Piazza is right on. The world was already well-connected in 2001. Reporters, not so much.

hmmm well Alexia - interesting question - What Would 9-11 Be Like in the Age of Social Media? - fyi i live on 26st facing what looked like the twin masts of a ship to me and on 9/11 they looked like the twin masts of the Titanic -

for many of us in nyc we lost internet for, if i recall, 3 weeks and some TV signals from those stations that had antennas on the towers - and phone on 9/11 was near impossible to get through even though my daughter some how got through from California and told me not to go down to what eventually was called ground zero - which i did after filming from my terrace and figuring as a doc filmmaker doing a documentary called Framing New York that i had to go - and walking around the city towards the smoke it was like living in a black hole or black out - people were walking towards and away from ground zero - needless to say we were numb, confused and confounded by circumstance; a people lost in space and time - but one thing that got my attention was a common remark people said to me as i filmed them "how nice people were and that it was terrible that something like this could bring people together to be nice to each other"

i think to answer your question about 9/11 in age of social media - you would see a wave of caring, support, sharing and people resonating and many people didn't know what to do so they went down and stood on line to give what they could - and that was their blood - i think you would see people giving their virtual blood - when the going gets tough people come together to make a difference - food for thought - geo

http://www.filthyrichmond.com
is a place for pock-marked freaks

Oh wow, way cool dude, I like ti!

RT
www.anon-tools.vze.com

In 2001, there was no mainstream Twitter and or Facebook updates. You didn't have the information sharing quite like the way we do today.

Sure, there were blogs and the like, but there wasn't one "source" where you'd get these blogs from. Twitter, and even Facebook, is this source today.

In 2001 you had Slashdot,
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/09/11/1314258

In 2001 you had Slashdot:
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/09/11/1314258

LOL so I think the article is a shallow analysis that means I'm being "mean" or an ass to the author?

Hey, I know they have to come up with something...they have assignments & deadlines and today is 9/11 so make it topical...but the premise of the article is flawed. That's not my fault nor does it make me an ass for pointing it out.

Now I'll really make ya hate me - I'm not on Facebook to this day. I still get my information at the same lightning fast speed that all you Facebookers do. I do like Twitter, however. And love that YouTube!

doesn't mean you're being mean, that was just one option. patting yourself on the head or just intentionally missing the point were other, lol.

Wow, your news source WAS the net?! Way to prove shoddy journalism...oh wait, the article never said people didn't get their news from the web then. You agreed with the guy that said it would be more accuarte to call it the "age before cellphones"- that is far from accurate as well, so... that doesn't really shed lighton anything. I don't get why the need to miss the point so much here. It has nothing to do with whether YOU or I use facebook (i don't either...) The fact is that enough people use these services that it does in fact change the way we get our news, and the content of that news. Having access to a few sites like CNN or blogs that take time to get updated, and we only hear what they decide to report is waaay different from getting instant updates from people while an event is going on. Take something as uneventful (by comparison) as Michael Jackson's death. If you don't think that news spread 100 times faster due to twitter alone, then you have no idea what you're talking about. That service alone not only gets information to people faster than the news usually does- it gets that information to the news and blog sites faster too...so even NON twitter users are getting news they may have otherwise gotten slower or not gotten because of these services and the differences in the internet landscape the author is describing. People who say the premise of the article is flawed are missing the premise of the article... a few sentences in the article may be wrong (like, yes we did have 'real-time' internet depending on how you want to take that), but the few innacurate sentences in the article aren't the points that hold up the point the article is making.

doesn't mean you're being mean, that was just one option. patting yourself on the head or just intentionally missing the point were other, lol. I guess 'clueless' could be one, but I don't really think that's true.

Wow, your news source WAS the net?! Way to prove shoddy journalism...oh wait, the article never said people didn't get their news from the web then. You agreed with the guy that said it would be more accuarte to call it the "age before cellphones"- that is far from accurate as well, so... that doesn't really shed lighton anything. I don't get why the need to miss the point so much here. It has nothing to do with whether YOU or I use facebook (i don't either...) The fact is that enough people use these services that it does in fact change the way we get our news, and the content of that news. Having access to a few sites like CNN or blogs that take time to get updated, and we only hear what they decide to report is waaay different from getting instant updates from people while an event is going on. Take something as uneventful (by comparison) as Michael Jackson's death. If you don't think that news spread 100 times faster due to twitter alone, then you have no idea what you're talking about. That service alone not only gets information to people faster than the news usually does- it gets that information to the news and blog sites faster too...so even NON twitter users are getting news they may have otherwise gotten slower or not gotten because of these services and the differences in the internet landscape the author is describing. People who say the premise of the article is flawed are missing the premise of the article... a few sentences in the article may be wrong (like, yes we did have 'real-time' internet depending on how you want to take that), but the few innacurate sentences in the article aren't the points that hold up the main statement the article is trying to make.

damn, sorry for the double post didn't look like it posted the first time...

Top celphone in 2001 was the nextel type of walkietalkie and sorts, top cel today is iPhone 3gs and advanced blackberries... Yes, we were globally connected on 9/11, but no where as near as todays tech and numbers of people online.

"Robert your an idiot." You are anyone?

Second, Robert, you're not an idiot. Just one of those "I was on this band wagon before you" type of person. I also was connected to the internet 24/7 in 2001. That doesn't mean that the general population was attached. Not to mention the fact that IRC is primarily full of how should I put this... "techies" and "nerds"; Me included. Thanks for being a big dildo though.

I think the article makes a good point, but I think Robert does too. In general, I think we do share a lot more realtime information. I think this is due not only to the internet, but also cheap data plans and smarter phones. You don't necessarily need the internet to send a text message. Certainly, sites like Facebook and MySpace also contribute to people being more informed, because of their feeds.

Even so, 2001 was far from the dark ages. To a certain extent, this seemed to be implied in the article. Windows 95 came out about five years earlier. It received a lot of criticism for having an integrated web browser. Today, that criticism seems a bit ridiculous to me. (protesting basic Internet access for all computers)
Throughout the late 90's broadband was still a bit scarce and expensive, but by the year 2000, it was much more commonplace and affordable.

I think it's ignorant to say that nothing has changed between now and then. However I think there was still a good amount of people that did stay informed by visiting CNN.com or reading headlines on their AOL home screen. Life wasn't entirely BBS's and 1200 baud modems "in those days".

I completelly disagree with this article... People had mobiles and computers... They might not have twitter but they had email, msn, forums.
if they wanted, they could have used them. They just didn't because they were worried that they might die... It was not a Blair witch project were you hold the camera and record it! A Professional cameraman or photographer might do that but a normal person just cares about his life.
And in fact people did use mobiles and phones to call they family.
But the main fact is that the people telling the story are always the ones from outside (at least when the main character dies).
That was where everyone was watching, outside, watching, filming, taking pictures, passing the word to the world. They were outside. People inside were worried with their life and their family. F**** the rest of the world! When it comes to it, that is what matters
And for point 4, about mob mentality, that was why US went to Iraq. A mob mentality allowed the US army to take offense against any possible threat.

Hindsight 20/20:

I think it would serve to inform us about as much as the source from which they came. There would be just as much debate, and misinformation which is arguably worse than none at all.

Much has change but the users are still the same. I don't think it would of averted any attacks, but it certainly would of helped with communicating with people that otherwise couldn't get to a land line.

BUT WOULD THAT MEAN: that the Telecos would also be "heroes" like firemen and police?

This is an interesting analysis about how THE REST OF US would have experienced the events of 9/11, but far more interesting would be an imagining of how the VICTIMS might have changed the course of history had they had more information. It's well known that the passengers on flight 93 were the only ones who knew about the previous planes to hit targets that day and that their plane was certain to be the next. This single fact changed the course of history; instead of assuming they were in the hands of ransomers, they realized the truth and took the plane down (after a failed attempt to gain control and land it). What might they -- and others -- have done differently (including leaving the towers sooner) had they had a constant stream of information?

Manuel:
"BUT WOULD THAT MEAN: that the Telecos would also be "heroes" like firemen and police?"

No, why would it? The policemen, firefighters, and others referred to as heroes during that time were called that because they risked their own safety and lives to do their jobs and save the lives of others (along with many other people who otherwise gave of themselves to help those affected). How is that anything like what the telcos do? They just build communication infrastructurs to make money...nothing wrong with that, but I don't think anyone would consider it heroic, haha.

All these comments prove the article...

Most of us had to text and email to get in touch with family and friends.

There WAS social media at the time..I guess you weren't around yet.

the article doesn't say we didn't have ANY social media. In fact it says we did.

"We had the earliest versions of social media, instant messaging and blogs. But we had nowhere near the household use of many-to-many communication channels like Twitter and text messages."

That statment is true (take note of the word USE there as well). Yes we had early versions of some of the things we do now (although not as sophisticated), but not NEARLY as many people USED them in the way we do now. Why do so many people insist on missing the point. I mean, one commenter even says "I completelly disagree with this article... People had mobiles and computers... "

Seriously, That's what you think the article was saying?? That nobody had cell phones or computers in 2001? lol

Whether you've been online since the early Usenet or just last year is not the point.

The convergence of mobile, internet and social media has changed the landscape in ways nobody had predicted and has given people tools with which they can access global communities and organize grass roots movements that can grab global headlines in minutes. Take case in point, Iran.

I'm surprised nobody mentioned it. The rebellion that happened there would never have happened without Twitter, at least not this time round. While the momentum in Iran has fizzled out due to the draconian regime, it paints a compelling picture of the future of communications, public opinion and the power that opinion can leverage.

9/11 would be a very different story today. Would it lead to more confusion, chaos and pain for relatives of lost ones who have to face clips of the mast minutes of their loved one being the day's most popular clip on youtube? Probably. But it can also be used to mobilize people for humanitarian purposes just as easily.

What will define how that plays out depends on the character and culture of the country and as we saw from the outpouring subsequent to 9/11 the American people will always come together with compassion and resolve.

You know what, we're all talking about it from another "building" type attack... a symbol of hope. We together now, as a community, as a world hold onto objects like that, because we can sit back, watch it all on TV, read about it online... we feel safe in that bubble.

What if the attack was on the internet? Take down every single connection (with satellite jamming, or something sinister), just to happen to 1 country, let alone the entire world, would be completely unstoppable of RIOT, RIOT, RIOT.

Imagine if since 9/11, they wanted to have another attack, this one hurting more people... They could have planted spies in any of our electronic, internet, phone, satellite services... I mean, if you had a 20 year lifespan of these moles, it would work as they'd be high enough to achieve this.

It would be well and truly a one side war. You go to work tomorrow and there's no lights on the road, no buildings with lights on, people stopping on the road trying to figure out what's going on.

Without TV, internet, radio, we would have no idea, what's the government to do? They can't talk to a city of 40 million people over a few thousand miles.

People would be absolutely, stuffed.

50, 100 years ago, towns were small, you could communicate with people at night, at a town meeting, but with a city 100 miles wide, 100 miles deep, you are going to have panicing people everywhere, no policing, no way of gaining control...

That's what would be an efficient attack, and that's what I'd be more scared of.

Robert is simply a computer geek.

I think all the commenters are kinda freaking out right now. I think it is an interesting question to ask considering the advances in information sharing and portable devices allowing to share this information with the world.

An interesting question, to be sure.

My first thought was that it would have resulted in less deaths. Given the much stronger networks we have today, and the ability to access the net from pocket devices, the people in the towers would have been flooded with messages to "get the f**k out". Many people needlessly died waiting for help to come.

You seem to have a lot of haters, Alexia, you don't deserve them. This was a little gem (found via DIGG).

DID people sit around in those buildings waiting for help to come, like Mike O says? In fact, the flip side is when the firemen and other responders went inside only to have the buildings collapse on them, would they have gone in if cellphones had had real-time YouTube connections like the i-phone does now? Maybe they'd have seen all the smoke and said forget it - would such real-time YouTubes leave more people in future with LESS help?

What if some passengers on the planes had been able to video and send images of hijackers or what was going on inside? Couldn't have done anything about the hijacking UNLESS by some miracle they'd have survived, then could have used it as proof in court. Would it have been a GOOD thing for loved ones of victims to see their loved ones in their last moments of panic, or bravery or whatever? Or just too painful?

What are the circumstances under which this new media could save lives? Tsotsis has a lot of people thinking and arguing, but a little more thought would have been nice.

Yes they did, Lucy. I watched a number of different documentaries this week, and there was one particular office that stayed put (as they were told when they contacted the Port Authority). Despite pleading from the manager's wife (via phone), they didn't leave until it was too late, and the tower came down where they were reportedly on the 15th floor or thereabouts.

Your point about YouTube is valid.

HAHA ur a noob!

very profound.

next you should write about how the holocaust would have been different if people could twitter from inside concentration camps and post cell-phone pics of the gas chambers to facebook.

Cellphones with built in still/video cameras were not ubiquitous in 2001. Had 9/11 happened in 2009, there would undoubtedly be a vast pool of video of the actual event as it unfolded from thousands of different locations, likely including video footage from inside the Twin Towers. There would be videos and stills of the destroyed basements and lobbies of both buildings, and perhaps the late Barry Jennings (Emergency coordinator for the New York Housing Authority) would have obtained pictures of the lobby of WTC Building 7, wrecked in a massive explosion before the collapse of the Twin Towers. Although most people were obviously scrambling to get out, there would be those curious enough to record the scenes as they escaped, and perhaps even get video of the damaged area on the way out. Also, there would be a lot more videotapes of the Twin Towers' collapses, from many angles and even close up. One certain thing: there would be a far greater pool of video testimony, which would give us a much more complete "in the field" version of events, rather than only having CNN and Fox etc to sanitize, filter and censor. What a terrible shame that in 2001, cellphones were not up to what they are today.

IRC is still the most sophisticated tool on the Net. AOL chat and Twitter are just superficial, commercialized, copies of it.

Is everyone here too young to remember that the news of the Tiananmen Square Massacre first broke on IRC in 1989? That was twenty years ago! Today Communist China and Iran can "wall off" the "new" social media like Twitter and MySpace, but China couldn't stop IRC then nor can it today.

It's rock solid, built to withstand a nuclear attack.

Most people who never followed their curiosity to find themselves on IRC, only using the tools the media (and the venture capitalists they promote), tell them to, will never know what social media is really about.

Hey there,
Cool blog, I just came across it and I'm already a fan.

It is disturbing that the top comments on this blog post dissect the meaning of 24-7 internet.
Point of the matter is that advanced technology and heightened communication would have provided us with more information and fact.

This post is absolutely correct in it's notation that TODAY, our Social Media technology would transmit information differently, and much more readily than in 2001.

Appreciate it for what it is. To argue the point is taking away from the entire meaning of this post - and the meaning of the tragedy that our country suffered 8 years ago.

I think the point is that we are now living in an age of sousveillance that did not exist 8 years ago.

Most news web sites went down on 9/11 do to the traffic. The whole Internet basically slowed to a crawl. Twitter would be down most likely.

what would it be like: the same 10 video clips photos and comments repeated as fast as possible on ever news station 24 hours aday, but this time it would be worse video and photos and digg would be all OMG epic pic links.

Uh...it was in the age of social media.

Before satellites, how did people learn about major news events that happened around the world? How long did it take?

Interesting post as for me. It would be great to read something more about this topic.

now I know it..