It's safe to say I don't actively seek out news on a daily basis. I'm slightly embarrassed to share that I never really watch the news, unless maybe I hear about something of interest that will be covered or if for some reason someone else turns it on. I'll read a newspaper on occasion ("on occasion" being once in the past few months) and thanks to the iPod, I don't really have the need to listen to the radio either - eliminating yet another common news source.
My source of news is ultimately the people I'm around. I hear about local and worldwide current events and happenings from friends and family. Usually, when I hear about an important or interesting bit of information, I'll find some form of news about it, either by looking it up on the internet or by watching the television news coverage of it.
The "grapevine" style news source that I've been relying on, while not quite complete and often skewed, is actually more appealing to me because in a sense it weeds out less important information by default. You might sit through an hour of local news and hear of a few interesting events and one or two important news stories, but between all that, you get countless advertisements and small filler type stories about a variety of seemingly unimportant topics and events. For this reason, I've come to prefer simply hearing about the important things through daily conversation and similar sources.
Of course, this does have its drawbacks. I don't get much news at all about politics (or many other intellectual topics for that matter) that isn't horribly distorted by opinionated viewpoints. The few avid followers of politics that I know and talk to regularly have rather strong opinions on any given topic dealing with the government, so in the end the "news" simply serves as a platform to present their views. Also, I obviously am not as knowledgeable on some world events, politics, and basically much else that would be covered on a news station.
Because of the lack of news I have been exposing myself to, I am looking forward to getting more involved in staying up to date.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
The Grapevine
Posted by Katie Etheridge at 7:42 AM
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2 comments:
I can relate. Although I do listen to the radio and read articles online occasionally, the majority of news I get is through other people. I have noticed recently that when I listen to someone else's version of the news then go look up the story myself, they are quite different. It's like playing thay telephone game we used to love when we were little. Every time the story gets passed along it changes a little.
That's a good observation, Nicole. We'll be looking at how stories are revised as they go through tellings.
I really liked how you weighed the advantages and disadvantages of the grapevine system, Katie. Getting news from other people is a lot more fun. It's also fun to be one of those telling others about the news.
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