How is this News?

I have my Google Alerts set to the company for which I work. The theory is that Google will tell me whenever my company shows up in the news. I do this because I think it's important that I know what's going on with my company outside of my little cube, and because, in my head, this will provide me with more-or-less updates as to what's going on in my industry without being inundated with the amount of updates I would receive if I had something more vague like "wireless" set as a Google Alert.

Up until now I have avoided naming my company because I'm just not sure that it's appropriate to do so in my blog, as my blog, in general, is not about my company, or my industry.

However, today my Google Alerts popped up this article about my company. You don't actually have to read it. It says that my company is possibly in merger talks with some other companies in the industry. This notion comes up every few months. Apparently my company is eternally in merger talks, or else reporters for the wireless industry occasionally get bored and want to spread gossip.

This article is a whopping five paragraphs and contains only 154 words, including the title and the author's name.

And it sites either 1) the New York Times, or 2) generally known stuff about my company.

I don't know about you, but this doesn't sound like news to me. It sounds like the world's shortest research paper.

I could do that for a living. It would be a helluva lot easier than what I'm currently doing, I could do it from home, and I could probably save a lot of brain function, since I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have to think.

If this was something I read in the San Diego Union Tribune, I would have commented that this is why print media is going out of business. But this article was already on-line.

Good Grief!