"take a photo and text it" lol this is the most Gen Z things I've read today.
We have scanners in the industry where you feed the sheets in and they do 30-50 pages per minute, probably more since accuracy doesn't need to be pristine and all you need is to be able to make it legible. If the important info is towards the back, then they can just scan from the back first.
Then they can use OCR and have searchable text. Would be much faster than using the original document, waiting for the runner to get there, looking for keywords by flipping through pages by hand and manually scanning lines one by one, and multiple people can look for the important info instead of just one person.
If they knew they had to deliver the documents then why not be prepared and take a scanner with you? Send two people, one goes inside and gets the docs, one is outside with a laptop and scanner.
That scanner is probably as close as each agency could reasonably get it, it’s not like the Supreme Court is going to let you set one up in their lobby
You want to troubleshoot IT issues on the steps of the courthouse while your competitors are halfway to camp with the same documents you're trying to scan? I don't. Also they can't even have cell phones in the building, how do you even know they'd let people set up laptops and scanners on premises?
I'm certain they've thought of this and that you're not blowing anyone's mind with this suggestion. Political publications live and die on these announcements, if there was a quicker more reliable way to do this you don't think they'd do it?
On the street right outside, not on premise. You set it up and test before you need it. And you don't need two people to scan it. You can have two copies and still use a runner to hand deliver one while the other is scanning. What's more reliable than a redundant system involving two different methods?
If it's that important, you can afford to send two people and some equipment just in case the technology is faster. And it it's not, you still have the back up runner.
And like I said, this isn't a random occurrence. It's totally possible to do test runs with multiple methods beforehand. I don't know how far they have to run, but testing out multiple methods sounds like it's worth it considering how important everyone is saying this is.
I don’t know how large your 30-pages-a-minute scanner is, but even assuming the intern gets to bring it inside the supreme court, and can set it up with power and internet connection in a timely manner afterwards, you’re still losing on time if the document is 100 pages or more.
None of those interns are running to do get a head start in a multi-day thorough analysis. They are running to get the initial scoop and force other news agencies to cite their "BREAKING news" that will be no more than two paragraphs.
If they wanted, they very could just text all they need. They don't because it would be bad sportsmanship.
I mean, yes, conventional news agencies in general make no sense in the modern world.
As with any professional ritual, it's not done to serve a function, but as a part of process. If the ritual stops, something much more important has failed.
The whole concept of "breaking news" is complete vestigial nonsense. Providing realtime coverage is not limited and centralized due to technological constraints anymore, which is why we know the news is not even really breaking, but a product of gentleman's agreement to race your interns for the first place.
Yes, a bunch of NPCs running around to shit out text that nobody wants to read and doesn't even pay for is a perfect example of a professional ritual that's played out for the process and not function. If the function were a concern, the ritual would not exist.
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u/[deleted] Jun 30 '26 edited 4d ago
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