The second casualty is weight. I am slightly out of touch with daily journalism, but I am certain "copy tasters" still survive. They may be called assistant news editors or news coordinators, but their principal function is to weigh up a story and assess how it stands up to the news flow of the day. I am uncertain how these functionaries are described in news channels, but they surely exist. However, what sort of news sense they possess is questionable. Frequently, the first lead in a TV news bulletin vastly exaggerates the importance of a story not because extraordinary footage has been acquired or some unique insight obtained, but because the copy taster has misread the weight of the story. It’s when you read the morning papers and find the same story buried in the inside pages do you get its true resonance.