Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Get Your Homeland Security Fix in a Flash

From: NEXTEL-1
Date: Sun, 04 Jul 2004 12:49:24 -0400

Get Your Homeland Security Fix in a Flash

Niche marketing is where it's at in the publications business. From
orchids to kayaks to knives, somebody's writing about it.
Still, I had no clue how pervasive the info industry has become. Who'd
have thought there'd be something for people who want the very latest in
homeland security news? Ball scores and movie reviews, yes.  Weekly
security news … uh-uh.
I wouldn't have guessed that anyone — outside of the CIA, FBI and
Congress — would want the very latest news in homeland security. The
less I know about homeland security, the better I sleep at night.

But, others apparently want to live in a constant state of high
awareness. These are people who monitor the color-coded terrorism
threats that flash on TV. For them, the Weekly Homeland Security
Newsletter is the perfect bedtime reading.
The newsletter is an online service that claims 28,000 subscribers and
entices you with this promo: "This Week in Homeland Security."

For my tastes, any week in homeland security involves only one question:
Were we attacked or not?  If the answer is no, my interest is exhausted
and I'm ready to pick up Sports Illustrated.
The newsletter goes far beyond that, however. The current issue features
nearly 60 articles, with additional links to others and to countless
newspapers across the country.

Not to quibble, but I wonder whether editors really should have picked
this as the lead item this week: "Pennsylvania State Police Receive
High-Tech Info System."

You can tell the editors know the subject matter is heavy, because they
pep things up with interesting elements like, "Quote of the Week."

Again, not to quibble, but they might want to find something snappier
than this week's quote: "We recognize that with the globe getting
smaller, with globalization, the Internet, with wire transfers, there is
no one agency that can address the threats that we see. Whether it be
terrorism or narcotics or trafficking of persons, we have to do it
jointly if we are to be successful."
In case you didn't recognize it, the quote is from FBI Director Robert
Mueller.

He's no Mark Twain.

In that same vein, the newsletter offers another feature called "Stats
of the Week."
I got a sinking feeling right off the bat when I discovered that this
week's stat was coming from "The U.S. Mayors' Report on Communications
Interoperability."

In short, the mayors reported than more than 80% of their cities are
"not interoperable" with key federal agencies. For a guy used to reading
weekly stats about "Who's Hot" in major league baseball, I wasn't moved
by the mayor's report.
I'm afraid other articles weren't much livelier. One of the headlines in
the "What's New" section is "Customs Needs to Change to Comply With
Zadvydas Decision, Says GAO."
I confess I didn't read the article.

The newsletter is one of the services of the Homeland Security
Institute, which was established and now being run by Analytic Services
Inc., a Virginia-based private nonprofit public research company. The
company was selected by the federal Department of Homeland Security and
is the parent of the ANSER Institute, which publishes the newsletter.
If that sounds like more bureaucracy than you can handle, I see your
point.

The layers of bureaucracy may account for the newsletter being pretty
heavy sledding. Or, maybe homeland security isn't an inherently funny
subject.

I had some questions for the editor but was told she was busy working on
next week's issue. No problem, but here's my advice to her if she wants
to increase readership:
Add more humor.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-parsons2jul02,1,5764953.column?coll==la-headlines-california

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