Aug
19
Where do you get your news?
Filed Under Sunrise on KGMB9
A Pew study finds that, when people are asked what they listened to, watched or read yesterday for news, 52% report watching local TV news, the only medium to draw a response by more than half of those surveyed.
The rest of the responses:
- Network morning news: 22%.
- Nightly network news: 29%.
- Newspaper: 34%.
- Radio news: 35%.
- Online for news three or more days a week: 37%.
- Cable news: 39%.
As recently as four years ago, only 29% got that much news online, and all of the other options drew similar or higher responses.
Back in 1993, twice as many said they regularly watched nightly network news and almost twice as many read newspapers daily.
I would suggest to you that it is a significant change in society, that a generation ago, if something was on the nightly network news, at least two thirds of the nation experienced it in a similar way. Today there is virtually no public event that more than a third of the nation will experience similarly.
We see this phenomenon in politics particularly, where many people view public discourse only through the filters of websites, cable and radio programming that represent the same views they already hold. We all know people who vote for a presidential candidate who does not win and cannot believe the outcome because the campaign coverage they experienced constantly reinforced their pre-existing views, and, unintentionally, prevented them from fully realizing that there were intelligent members of the electorate who felt otherwise.
Any fair-minded political independent will tell you that this happens in both the liberal and conservative camps, too. The Pew study was, I think, intended mainly for media people, especially those working for traditional media, to see how their public is changing, but for me there is a lesson for the average citizen, that now, more than ever, it is useful to make a point of exposing oneself to several different media, not just those that seem most congenial to one’s views.
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I get almost all of my news through RSS feeds. I have several hundred of them organized by topic, etc. It creates a river of interesting information that passes by me every day. The signal to noise ratio is great. For example… I’m not very interested in sports so don’t subscribe to sports news feeds. I am interested in the travel industry so I have dozens of travel related news feeds. I don’t know why everybody doesn’t do that sort of thing. Everything on TV & the News Paper is old news.