Media speed is the time it takes news to be distributed to an audience, however large or small, and whether by newspaper, electronic means or word of mouth.

Through the centuries, the interval separating the origin and actual delivery of news has been greatly reduced.

Europe’s Thirty Years War began as a conflict between Protestants and Catholics in 1618, for example, but who knows how many years before the rest of the planet heard about it. Also, it’s been said that two months and nine days elapsed before official word of King William’s death in England reached his North American subjects in 1718. And that in 1841 it took three months and 20 days for news of President William Henry Harrison’s death in the east to reach Los Angeles.

From the telegraph to live TV and the Internet, technology was the catalyst that accelerated news delivery. As in 1963, when 68 percent of Americans learned that President John F. Kennedy had been shot within 30 minutes of the attack. And in 2002, when the planet learned almost instantly that President George W. Bush had fainted while choking on pretzel.

There was a time when media and speed were so incompatible they didn’t belong in the same sentence. But that’s hardly the case now, given the blazing speed of local newscasts, cable’s live-driven 24-hour crowd and news—along with faux news—hurtling through cyberspace even before it happens.

We crave speed in all areas of our lives. So it’s not surprising that news media and other communications technology mirror our drive to go faster and faster. If only that drive were matched by a capacity to think faster and faster.