I don’t watch the news.
Today I Twittered this:
I don’t watch the news because people are paid to report it.
And my friend Collin asked me this:
Just out of curiosity where do you get your news?
I was going to quickly answer him, but, as the three of you that are actually reading this may already know, I’m not like that. Ask me what time it is, and I’ll tell you how to build a clock.
Collin, here is the answer to your question my friend:
OK- so this is going to sound weird outside of context. Twitter.
Here’s the context, with Haiti as an example: At first I was catching the usual tickers (see ads) about what was going on there, but then I stopped. Partly because there was SO much information, and partly because one can only take so much doom & gloom.
I came across a guy that is an American living in Haiti that has been Tweeting about what he’s seeing, plus sending pics, plus shooting video of the events as they happen. He tweeted this recently:
“Dont blieve hype. Things R relatvely stable hre. ive bn in thick of it. But I dont have spnsrs 2 please, do I? #haiti”
I’ve been in this camp for some time now (not watching the news). Check out any of my posts on here when the first “stimulus package” was being pushed through and you’ll see that media=hype. 99% of the time.
That’s the long answer Collin. Essentially: I go with non-traditional news sources. Twitter. Facebook. Blogs. Why? Because they have nothing to really gain by being something other than real.
And yes- I have close friends in the news business, KTVB (NBC) and KTRV (FOX), but I’m not speaking about them “getting paid to report the news”. I’m speaking about huge conglomerates that only care about ad space. And in a market where traditional advertising is DOWN a combined 59% last year- you better believe that those big wigs will do everything they can to protect their cottages (see mansions) in The Hamptons.
That makes sense. At first it seemed there was no way to get news by someone or something not getting paid to do it. In some of my media classes we talked about how the news would be us reporting it. How eventually the news would not be anchors telling the news but us telling our own stories. It sounds like it has really started to pick up since twitter and facebook have become so popular. – Collin
Right on man.
I agree to some point but you cannot say that twitter, facebook and such are completely legit it is an internet source and there are plenty of people that make stuff up just to get reactions or just to get “feedback” from other bloggers. I don’t watch the news either because like you said all they report on is the doom and gloom. Why not do a story on how many people are out there doing good in the world instead of all the crap that people are doing. It’s no wonder there is such a negative image toward America. It is getting so bad that even ESPN is reporting on the crap we shouldn’t be caring about like Tiger and his going to sex addiction classes. I DON”T CARE!!!! I don’t watch Tiger on Sundays and say wow that is such a great guy. I watch him because he is a great golfer. Now it would be nice if these guys would be good role models but who are we kidding there probably less than 1% of professional athletes that are actually good role models. Anyways after that rant Nick i think you are correct. Our media does more harm than good.