Squaring the informational circle - II

Data and information come and go at speeds we have difficulty to engage with. News are past in a matter of minutes, pushing consumers into a media competition for attention, shouting that there is no better news than live news. But as it so happens, live news are by definition past and no longer worthy of attention as we are pushed to the next news story.

In fact, news have become a matter of urgency rather than importance, rushing from story to story, from opinion to counter opinion, from data to alternative data, from information to disinformation at a speed that hinders one's ability to discern signal from noise and to retain (store/process/integrate) relevant bits, let alone creating knowledge that can be actionable.

These massive inflows of information have the effect of unbalancing the decision making process, either by reinforcing existent biases or by obfuscating reality and possible courses of action. This is so unless news stocks are acted upon, both by filtering inflows and directing outflows.

Balancing information flows is not just an essential task for the intelligence analyst, but the primary function of an intelligence structure supporting decision making.

We'll elaborate on the issue, would you care to give your take on the matter?