Changes Afoot at the Early Bird

A quick note here about the Early Bird's Current News Service, in case any military readers of this blog are interested.* The Early Bird has made two changes: 1. The Main edition is now available 7 days a week. 2. The Supplemental edition has been scrapped completely. While making the Main edition available on weekends is nice, I think scrapping the Supplement is a mistake. The Main edition is filled with stories from the major newspapers -- NY Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles, etc. These papers make up around 60-70% of the content of the Main edition. The Supplement on the other hand always had stories from local papers, foreign papers, and not just papers, but magazines and journals as well. The Supplement also carried stories that were behind-the-scenes and more in-depth, as opposed to the headline-grabbing stuff you see in the Main edition. The result is that the stories in the Main edition are nearly always told from the same angle or reporting slant, whereas those in the Supplement were varied and much more interesting (I once read a translated interview with Donald Rumsfeld from the French press in the Supplement -- very enlightening). The bottom line is that the Supplement was an outstanding repository of open-source news about defense issues, whereas the Main edition is just a wave-top view of current headlines, with all of the predictable left-media spin. I know this is irrelevant to many of my readers, but you never know who in the Pentagon might read my blog. Maybe they'll change their minds. *quick background for the unfamiliar: the Early Bird is a news service put out by the Department of Defense every weekday morning at 5am or so eastern time. It compiles defense-related news from major news sources' stories during the night. Access is limited to military personnel, and other members of the federal government. As a member of the Individual Ready Reserve, I still retain my access.