Endless News Cycle Crushes Reporters' Silly Season

So much for this year's "Silly Season." According to Politico's Michael Calderone, the usual summer lull in the news cycle that in the past had bred innumerable frivolous, disposable reports—what the Brits call "The Silly Season"—has been replaced this year by a spate of actual news stories (think: health care reform, Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation, Sarah Palin's resignation, President Obama saying the Cambridge police acted "stupidly"). Reporters have been forced to do their jobs when all they probably want to do is take advantage of their summer Fridays.

“The doldrums don’t exist anymore," Time's editor-in-chief, Rick Stengel, told Calderone. "People don’t tune out anymore."

Notes Calderone:

This summer saw an important election in Iran. The story dominated the news early, only to be supplanted by Jackson and Palin coverage, according to [Pew's Project for Excellence in Journalism]’s weekly studies. Most recently, the confirmation hearings of Judge Sonia Sotomayor emerged as the top news story—despite griping in the press corps about how there’s been little actual news. And on a recent Friday evening, the cable networks quickly shifted programming to the death of broadcast legend Walter Cronkite, with friends and colleagues getting on the phone and heading to the studios all weekend.Maybe having to work extra hard during the summer isn’t so bad: The Paper Cuts blog estimates more than 11,921 newspaper jobs lost or bought out in 2009, so there are clearly worse fates than doing one's job when you'd rather just be at the beach.