I’m currently in the midst of a self-imposed news blackout. Generally, I’m an NPR addict, so this is pretty significant. But I just grew tired of hearing about Iraq everyday. And the political debate between Bush and Kerry basically degenerated to Kerry being the opposite of whatever Bush said, rather then having an agenda of his own. And every news cycle I was getting bombarded with the latest example. So I have a question for everybody… how do you ration your news? What are your sources? How much do you get? Is it enough? Or too much? Please post your responses.
News Blackout
September 27th, 2004 · 6 Comments
Tags: Current Affairs
6 responses so far ↓
1 Amanda // Sep 27, 2004 at 7:47 pm
I was never a fan of current events, so I pretty much ignore all the happenings in this world. Partially because it never interested me, but another part was because of the way media seems to report about the same things to the point where it’s no longer actually new, but just annoying. Elian Gonzalez is still prominent in my mind in that regard. No television station, newspaper, or website seemed to ever drop that.
2 Lisa // Sep 27, 2004 at 10:29 pm
I prefer to read my news. That way I’m not inundated with unwanted sights and sounds. Also, I can read a headline and decide to skip it whereas if you hear a news blip you wished you hadn’t, it’s too late. My news comes from the daily local paper (Moses Lake) or from Google News if I’m following a story I want an immediate update on. Word of mouth news should not go without mention, either. For anything really major that happens in the world, I almost always hear it by word of mouth before I read about it. (Moms are good for that.) I feel very comfortable with the amount of news I take in. I feel I am in control and can be informed without feeling overwhelmed or depressed.
3 Daren // Sep 28, 2004 at 10:12 am
So why do you ask? Are you just curious, or are you doing a research project?
Anyway, my news “ration”… We receive two papers at our home. One is a daily with a wide circulation, and the other is a bi-weekly local paper. To tell you the truth, I don’t read them too much. My wife likes the daily. I usually look for sports scores and I’ll see what’s on the headlines. I like the local paper, because it’s info about our community. But I guess I don’t read them too much because I usually am up-to-date newswise from our “first, live, local” morning news show that I watch with a cup of coffee as I am urging the kids to get ready for school each morning. I also have a few headlines on my home page on the computer, but only read the story if it catches my eye and I want more info about it. Is it enough? I would say so, in some cases maybe too much. I guess there are certain stories that I will follow and other stories, kind of filter out. For instance, I have been keeping up with the latest rumblings on Mt. St. Helens and the fate of the British guy who, I think, still has his head. I am mostly interested in the news here at home. The Presidential race and the war in Iraq gets redundant most of the time. Not that I don’t care, I’m just not interested too much unless there is a new development.
Again, not sure why MY news intake is of interest, but there you have it!
4 jeffrey // Sep 28, 2004 at 10:53 am
Daren,
I asked people to post their news preferences as a way of getting ideas for how I should approach news. Just gathering the collected wisdom.
5 Mark Aho // Sep 28, 2004 at 10:54 am
The news, (and media in general) is like junkfood, it fills the mind with
fluff while destroying hunger for more important things. As a Christian, I
want my mind to be saturated with the Word. (think pickle in jar of brine)
If I soak my mind in the media brine, I’ll be the wrong kind of pickle. I
haven’t had TV for over 5 years, and hardly listen to the radio. If you ask
me what’s going on in the world, I could tell you because I read the AP
headlines everyday. (takes about 30 seconds online) And AP draws from the
accumulated biases of many different news sources rather than just one bias,
so I get an unbiased sampling of all the biases. That’s about all I need to
know, and then on to more important things.
6 Colleen // Sep 29, 2004 at 6:31 pm
This comment has sparked much comment. I do NPR for an hour in the morning and that’s where I hear news of Iraq and the election. We watch CNN sometimes. I look at Northwest Cable News online, Faithtree and the Region section of the Spokesman Review paper plus our local paper too. Since I have a minor involvemnt with some local politics, I know reporters report from their own bias and so I’m learning to take what I read, see and hear with a “grain of salt”.
I like editorials and letters to the editor. I suppose I may care more about how these world events impact people more than I do the event itself. The hurricanes have been something I follow and now the possible impending explosion of Mt. St. Helens is interesting since I lived through it’s last active phase in 1980.
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