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Chuck Todd gets up at dawn, when he scans the press and writes the first page of NBC’s blog “First Read”. Then he throws on a jacket to appear on the Today show or on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe”.

Before the day ends he has also written eight to 10 tweets or some Facebook postings, and at least three blog entries.

This is the routine of the White House correspondent for NBC, as described by The New Yorker magazine in its January issue.

Todd’s routine is the same as countless colleagues and, in general, the contemporary journalist.

In Todd’s words, now he has much less time for interviews than a decade ago. And now, he says, he is compelled to “do more reporting on my Blackberry”, sending quick questions to official sources.

No rest

Todd is not alone. Peter Baker, the White House correspondent for The New York Times believes that 10 years ago the journalist had “the luxury of writing for the next day’s newspaper”.

“A reporter -he says- had at least a few hours to call people, to access information, to provide context. Today, as much as you want to do that, by the time your deadline comes around you’ve already filed for the Web”.

Baker adds: “We are hostages to the non-stop, never-ending file-it-now, get-on-the-Web, get-on-the-radio, get-on-TV media environment”.

We live in a context of “Non-Stop News”, as the title of The New Yorker story says. It is a context that leaves less room for in-depth news and more toughtful stories.

The article signed by Ken Auletta,, suggests that despite the wide-ranging possibilities that the digital world offers to us, there is the danger of remaining on the surface of events and not finding time to get to the bottom and research all the facts.

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