I was reading the Bee the other day and I ran across an interesting story about “news”. The short story is that few people are interested in the news and even fewer young people look for news in their lives. One 19 year old had this to say, “I try to pick up little things, here and there, about the news. I'm a social science major, so maybe I'm different,"… "But my friends just don't care. I'm always surprised when they don't know stuff."
Stuff? According to David T. Z. Mindich, a former CNN producer and author of "Tuned Out: Why Americans Under 40 Don't Follow the News”, this attitude is alarming.
Mindich's argument: Our very democracy hinges upon an informed citizenry plugged in to current events.
"How do you hold the government and its leaders accountable if you don't follow the news?" Mindich asks. "There's always been a segment of the population that will never follow the news. The problem is that the numbers have increased a lot in the last 30 or 40 years."
And this… “A 2005 survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation showed that young people spend 6 hours and 21 minutes per day using media - 3 hours and 51 minutes of it watching TV. Yet, only 6 percent of respondents said they watched the news.”
Scary!
I don't think alot of people care, that is their right. Then their are the people that care but feel helpless to do anything. Then there are the people that are suspect of the media at large. I have found that I zero in on certain types of news, very little arts and entertainment, some sports (football), lots of local, some national and internatioanl (which is where the media really begins to taint, twist, and generally sensationalize for ratings. Someone needs to stick it to the big, greedy corporations. The media is as corporate as they come.
ReplyDelete"lots of local, some national and internatioanl (which is where the media really begins to taint, twist, and generally sensationalize for ratings." Now how would you know that they were messing with the news...unless you read it all? Or are you just assuming?
ReplyDeleteActually I am making it up, passing on internet rumor, parroting Rush Limbaugh because I am unable of original thought.
ReplyDeleteI can watch, read, and listen to news reports about say Kosovo and see nothing about the murder of Christians at the hands of muslims, the destruction of 1,000 year old churches, the rapes of nuns by the peace loving followers of Islam, etc. I keep hearing alot in the media about how poorly the Iraqis are being treated at the hands of the evil Americans and Brits but very little about the Muslims killing Christians in Nigeria. perhaps I am a paranoid right winger but it just seems like the big coporations (yes the media is a bunch of big bad coporations)have an agenda and feed to lotus eaters what they so desire to eat. Fox news feeds it's lotus fruit to it's fan base just like CNN does.
I began this subject of "News" talking about people who don't follow the news. I didn't specify the news sources...Now if you consider the 3 networks and 2 cable news to be the sum total of the "News", well then you might as well be making it up. You're not following the news at all. You have to seek out the news. All of those things you mention have been in the news; just not in the news sources you seem to access...There are plenty of other news sources and they are quite easy to find.
ReplyDeleteBoy, are you sure you're not a lawyer. news isn't news except when sought after with the stipulation that it isn't from source "A".....
ReplyDeleteSimply put I have to look for what is happening because the "news" often isn't.
Channel 3 (or eight here in Maine), where the ratings come first!