The Daily Background

I thought I’d talk a little bit about news sources.

There used to be a time when wealthy white men would read the morning and maybe evening edition of their favorite newspaper, and that was pretty much the only news consumption that was going on– besides basic word of mouth. It would take days for international news stories to circle the globe, until long-distance telegraph began to become viable.

And then radio came along, and all of sudden somebody was reading the news to those wealthy white men. But before long, it wasn’t just wealthy white men, it was everybody. And then television news came along, and there was another revolution. You could actually watch somebody who read you the news, only they weren’t just reading it to you– they were also showing it to you, with earlier-that-day footage from anywhere in the world.

In other words, news consumption became much easier. Much, much easier for anyone. But with the advent of television news, a fundamental problem surfaced for the public, in our search to be informed. That was this: all the news programs came on television at about the same time. And that time was also dinner time. And then for the rest of the day, there was normal television programming.

Sure, since the beginning of television news, there have been innovations like 24-hour news networks. But the problem with that was, 24-hour news networks haven’t become reliable sources for news because they focus too much on filling up each hour, and thusly rely on fluff stories that condensed news programs don’t bother covering.

But back to the traditional half hour 6:00/6:30/7:00pm newscast. The problem that this created was the following: if you wanted to watch television news, unless you wanted to flip channels to try and catch different takes on each story (non-passive television watching) — you were stuck with one source.

And that meant one point of view. And one group of producers who were deciding what was newsworthy, and what was not. And more often than not, that group of producers was composed of well-off (if not outright wealthy) white men. Are you beginning to see a pattern here?

Traditional newspapers required that news consumers be active, and look through the paper to find what news they wanted to read about. This meant that they had to have time (i.e. working people who were in factories 14 hours a day weren’t able to be informed by newspapers). And you still had the limited number of people who were deciding what was newsworthy and how to cover each story. But there was also an advantage to that; news consumers had to be active in their consumption of news.

With television (and news radio), news was delivered to the masses, and that was awesome. The problem was, it’s created a generation of largely passive consumers of news. Which is another really big problem. People watch choose one program for news (and there aren’t that many to choose from), expect it to cover news in an honest way, and cover the same news stories as every other program. And then they slump down on your couch with your mashed potatoes, and “watch” the news.

And then the internet came along. And everything changed again. With the internet, everybody became a potential publisher. And damn, have we published. The internet, because there’s such a wide array of news sources, news consumers are forced out of their passive state. There are choices to be made. Whose blog do you want to read? What news websites are you going to check twice every day, make as your browser’s homepage, or subscribe to in your RSS reader?

Some websites are niche sites, and will only have news on one or two topics. Others try to cover everything, and still others try to do both– with a bias they hope their readers will agree with. Some news sources will cover a story in a certain light, another with a less-obvious bias, and another news source might not cover it at all. So it’s immensely important if we’re going to be informed, to cover all our bases.

And this means variety. And it’s something that’s important for everybody to consider. Take a moment to take stock of your situation. Maybe you’re lacking in your news consumption status. How many sources provide you with news every day? And what kind of sources are they?

Some things to consider.

How much news do you get from word of mouth? How much news do you get from traditional print media? How about from online print media? Television news? Talk shows? How many programs? What times of day? Is there transparent bias in what news you consume? Or is it “straight” nothing-but-the-news news? How much news do you get from pundits? How often do you check blogs? How many blogs do you read regularly? What does regularly mean to you?

And nobody is the perfect news consumer, with the perfect variety of news sources. Here’s me. Occasionally, I will get breaking news through word of mouth. Most other times I already know about what people are talking about. I get about the same amount from traditional print media (although I wish this amount was more). I watch the local news when it happens to be on, here in Chicago occasionally, but don’t seek it out. Mainly this is late at night 11pm news editions. Often, I’ll watch topical clips from talk shows and news shows online, mainly for humor. (worthy of noting: I don’t have cable, and might watch these things more often if I was able to “live) Talk radio? None (although I’d love a subscription to Air America if somebody wanted to buy me one, heh) There is probably a roughly 40-60 straight news to biased sources mix in my sources. I read 25 blogs regularly, about each day (some more than once, some only at a glance). No newsmagazines. Add to that about 5 “traditional” news websites in my RSS reader, and a few odd Google News Alerts which tell me the latest news on a particular topic.

And here’s something else to consider. The first question I asked was “how much news do you get from word of mouth?” That begs another question: how much news do you spread by word of mouth? This is an important one.

How much do you talk to people about current events? Discussing the news is really important. Because not only are you furthering public interest in current events and fostering an opportunity for public debate on whatever “the issues” are at that time, you’re also educating everybody within earshot. By spreading news via word of mouth, you’re actually increasing the total amount of news consumed by the people around you. And that can change public opinion.

Filed under: Z-TDB Blog, Uncategorized