I have been reading a fine little volume about the late newsman William Shirer's work covering the rise of Hitler and the Nazis in pre-war Germany. (Shirer's “Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” is supposed to be good, too, but I'm not sure I can lift it.)

Shirer joined Edward R. Murrow and the fledgling CBS Radio company just as Hitler was “annexing” Austria. Edgar Ansel Mowrer, a friend of my dad and later a columnist for the Union Leader, also chipped in on what became the first transcontinental, live news broadcast from multiple European cities.

Technology has come aways since then, but it still has its tense moments.

You can watch TV newsmen using the Skype Internet service to beam their reports in real time from the other side of the world. Cellphone video from dangerous places can be uploaded and transmitted in the blink of an eye.

My buddy and colleague, Bob LaPree, has sent us photos from around the world in an instant, and this week he will send from Hawaii where the Manchester High School Central Band plays at the site of a long ago and faroff war scene: Pearl Harbor. Hard to believe that we are now as far removed from that attack as was my father, in 1931, from the start of the Civil War.

I wonder if the Civil War, with its wholesale slaughter of young Americans from North and South, would have lasted as long if Matthew Brady and others were sharing their art work with the public on a 24-7 basis.

That 24-hour, seven-day a week news phenomenon of today brings news faster but also makes it instantly old. Our presidential primary endorsement of Newt Gingrich, made a week ago, seems “so yesterday,” as the kids say.

But when it was fresh, it was a big story for the national media, in part because it was the end of the Thanksgiving weekend and there was not much news breaking out.

Drew Cline, our editorial page editor, and I were suddenly in demand. We took turns in the same chair at St. Anselm's N.H. Institute of Politics, which has a remote camera used by several networks. Then the lady of the house and I took a grandson on a hay ride to see Santa before another network found me.

“Can you Skype?” came the question.

Being vaguely familiar with the term, though not the technology, I said “sure” and then tracked down my son, the techno genius.

With minutes to spare before a live broadcast, the former rugrat had me linked to Fox via the kitchen laptop, while the lady of the house fretted about how the art on the wall would look on TV.

I wonder what Shirer and company would have made of it all.

Write to Joe McQuaid at publisher@unionleader.com.