If one runs a business, and has a sale scheduled, advertising the time and place of the sale is vital: people won’t attend events of which they’ve no knowledge.
Some news stories are like this: reporting on an approaching storm requires quick publication of the weather.
It’s not true, however, that every story requires quick publication: some are instant coffee, but others are slowly cold-brewed.
Looking at Whitewater, or communities close to Whitewater, one sees how many stories are rushed, how many quick press releases are issued to ‘get one’s message out,’ or ‘jump on a story,’ etc.
A few more hours’ care would have produced a better product: more strengths, fewer weaknesses. (Some of the weaknesses are hostages to Fortune; they reveal views that will likely come back to haunt months later.)
There’s more than one person advising Whitewater’s officials to respond quickly, change the subject, move on, etc.
They all have this in common: they don’t understand that the city evolves meaningfully over seasons and years, not hours and days.