Up until a few weeks ago, the Cato Institute was pretty reliable in terms of posting its text commentaries and podcasts on its web site.
That is, on any given day, usually by the early afternoon, the "Cato Daily Podcast" for that day would be up on their web site and showing in my RSS feed. Ditto the text commentaries written by its analysts and usually published that day, or the day before, or scheduled for publication soon, in this or that newspaper or magazine.
Starting around the turn of the year, though, the Daily Podcast "for" Date X shows up on the web site five days, a week, or two weeks after Date X.
And the commentaries are hit or miss for showing up on the web site at a time/day consistent with the date they were supposedly "published" on. For example, this morning there's a commentary in my RSS feed, and on the Cato site, with a publication date of February 11. But it wasn't actually posted on February 11. They just "back-dated" it.
Why do I find this bothersome? Well, I publish a daily roundup of news, commentary, and audio/video that's presumably "of interest to libertarians." Cato's definitely in that mix. Or was, going back to the 1990s. And still would be, if their stuff was actually published when they said it was published.
There's not a hard and fast time frame rule, but I generally try to grab stuff within 24-48 hours of publication. If you say you published it on the 11th, but don't actually publish it until the 18th, it's ... stale ... by the time I see it. And by the time anyone else sees it, too.
My guess: Perhaps some staff departed and the positions haven't been filled yet. Maybe I should submit my resume?
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