Information Cycle Tutorial - McQuade Library

The Cycle of Information

This early stage in the information cycle is not always accurate or well-informed:

"Right now, we are getting information ... that it was a small commuter plane." - Katie Couric, The Today Show, (9:00 AM ET)

"We do know--or at least the Associated Press is now reporting that an aircraft crashed near the Pentagon. ...Now the Pentagon is southwest from the White House, across the Potomac River, and what we think we may be seeing there--emphasis on think--is smoke in the distance, rather than immediately behind the Pentagon." - Peter Jennings, ABC News Special Report (8:53 AM ET)

And yet, this early stage is also valuable for "first-hand" accounts of an event:

"Ms. WALKER: Well, I live in this area. I returned to my apartment. But I was walking down the sidewalk delivering my young daughter to school. And we heard a very loud sound, the kind of sound you hear when a plane is, you know, going fast past you 'Nnnnnn,' followed by an enormous crash and an immediate explosion." - Katie Couric interview with a witness to WTC crash, The Today Show, (9:00 AM ET)

Mr. WRIGHT: Yes. It was about 9:35 and I was looking out our 12th floor windows at 1600 Wilson Boulevard in Roseland, Virginia, and I watched this--it looked like a commuter plane, two-engine, come down from the south real low, proceed right on and crash right into the Pentagon. - Peter Jennings interview with a witness to the Pentagon crash, ABC News Special Report, (10:00 AM ET)

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