Times-Picayune to reduce to 3 per week

[soulfuldog]

Another one for BBC News website as my main source of news, supplemented by local/national news on radio.

Local news, sometimes I'll buy a local newspaper for that, while my mother still buys a Sunday newspaper but more for general content & features as opposed to any news.

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by frahse

People are voting for their preferred media with their money and their eyes and ears and in general the majority of people are better informed about events today than they were 20 years ago and certainly 50 years ago.

I agree with the first part of this sentence. The last part not so much. At best, people are better informed about what happened in the last few hours.

I'm not one to use FoxNews as a cuss word. I think a person could be reasonably well-informed getting their news from the FoxNews Calibre feed, even though there are better choices. But as for the FoxNews channel:

Overall, Fox News dominated the ratings as usual. The network claimed the top 13 programs in total viewers.

A lot of those programs are not news, but opinion. In as much as people switched from high circulation afternoon newspaper newspapers like the late Washington Star and Philadelphia Bulletin to straight TV news and then to opinion TV news, I suspect the trend is less to being better informed and more to having greater certainty that one is well-enough informed to have firm opinions.

Would anyone fifty years ago say, with a straight face, that they get their news from a comedian?

eReaders could be part of the solution. The Calibre news feeds are a stupendous resource putting in my hand a deeper and wider range of national and world news than I ever got from that Philadelphia Bulletin. However, I don't get the idea that eReaders are being much used in that way.

[bfisher]

I use the BBC and CBC websites for quick news checks, but I still subscribe to 2 print newspapers, one for local news and the other for national coverage. I feel that the national newspaper offers deeper analysis of issues than the broadcast news websites provide.

[plib]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

I'm not one to use FoxNews as a cuss word. I think a person could be reasonably well-informed getting their news from the FoxNews Calibre feed, even though there are better choices. But as for the FoxNews channel:

Overall, Fox News dominated the ratings as usual. The network claimed the top 13 programs in total viewers.

Link on the same page as the link above:

Study Finds Fox News Viewers Least Informed Of All Viewers

[Phogg]

Originally Posted by J. Strnad

Cheap and crappy always beats out more expensive and better in America. (I know, my cynicism is showing. ) And anything of quality that is going to survive needs to be monetized. It can survive if enough people pay enough of a premium to support it. Like toll roads, HBO, and personal shoppers.

If we want lengthy, well-researched, investigative journalism, we have to be willing to pay for it. Maybe we subscribe to an expanded online version while the free version provides the headline and a quick synopsis and a link for subscribers to "learn more."

Anything good that we want to survive, we must be willing to pay for. If we expect it for free, we must expect it to be crass, shallow, and monetized in some other way.

Well researched for pay online Journalism already exists.
Indeed, it is part of what is killing the old newspapers.

The papers are too late, and have too low standards to catch up.

[covingtoncat73]

It was inevitable but it is sad to see such a tradition passed. They even messed up their Nola.com website with an awful redesign recently. It is a shame. They had great coverage of Katrina, the oil spill, and (recently) the prison industrial complex in Louisiana.


Here is my grandmother working at the Picayune in the late 1930s.

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by plib

Study Finds Fox News Viewers Least Informed Of All Viewers

Reading the entire study, it looks to me that while the headline you quote accurately reflects the findings, MSNBC viewers tend to be next worst.

I have a bunch of problems with the study, ranging from the small number of questions and inadequate sample size for each media source to how they lumped me with readers of USA Today.

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by covingtoncat73

Here is my grandmother working at the Picayune in the late 1930s.

Excellent post. Thank you.

[plib]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

Reading the entire study, it looks to me that while the headline you quote accurately reflects the findings, MSNBC viewers tend to be next worst.

I have a bunch of problems with the study, ranging from the small number of questions and inadequate sample size for each media source to how they lumped me with readers of USA Today.

I didn't bother with the study, I can make my own mind up about Fox News. The reason I originally quoted it was that I found it amusing that both headlines were juxtaposed on the same page.

[VaporPunk]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

I agree with the first part of this sentence. The last part not so much. At best, people are better informed about what happened in the last few hours.

I'm not one to use FoxNews as a cuss word. I think a person could be reasonably well-informed getting their news from the FoxNews Calibre feed, even though there are better choices. But as for the FoxNews channel:

Overall, Fox News dominated the ratings as usual. The network claimed the top 13 programs in total viewers.

A lot of those programs are not news, but opinion. In as much as people switched from high circulation afternoon newspaper newspapers like the late Washington Star and Philadelphia Bulletin to straight TV news and then to opinion TV news, I suspect the trend is less to being better informed and more to having greater certainty that one is well-enough informed to have firm opinions.

Would anyone fifty years ago say, with a straight face, that they get their news from a comedian?

eReaders could be part of the solution. The Calibre news feeds are a stupendous resource putting in my hand a deeper and wider range of national and world news than I ever got from that Philadelphia Bulletin. However, I don't get the idea that eReaders are being much used in that way.

Nice post. Opinion ain't news and I think too many of us Yanks have forgotten that. But the trend in Europe (well, Belgium anyway) is moving the same way. Hard News is boring but informative, Opinion News is conflict and taps into anger. One makes money the other doesn't. I find it ironic, as an American, that state-sponsored news has become more accurate and balanced than the corporate news.

[SeaKing]

Originally Posted by VaporPunk

Nice post. Opinion ain't news and I think too many of us Yanks have forgotten that. But the trend in Europe (well, Belgium anyway) is moving the same way. Hard News is boring but informative, Opinion News is conflict and taps into anger. One makes money the other doesn't. I find it ironic, as an American, that state-sponsored news has become more accurate and balanced than the corporate news.

Well maybe...

I dipped slightly and hopefully very quickly into the issues of different news sources before, and along the way indicated that I used a variety of sources across the spectrum. I take what I get from all of them and try to understand the "whole" truth. The so called facts aren't necessarily true and aren't necessarily "everything."
Remember that saying "the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth." There is a reason they say that.

An advantage of "OPINION PROGRAMS" is that you get to hear either side arguing and bashing with each other. Then I believe that you can get a little closer to that elusive quality called truth.

I kind of like that other saying "... and in this corner wearing the red, white and blue stripped trunks is ..."

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by Belfaborac

Like others have said already, BBC's web site supplies my UK and general international news. For more localised news or to broaden the scope I regularly visit Reuters, Agence France Presse, Al Jazeera, Al Arabiya and CNN. For keeping up with specific, big stories (like the Libyan revolution and such) in "real time", Breaking News is very useful.

Thanks for the tip on BreakingNews. I didn't even know they existed; especially, since they're from around here. I download the apps for my Galaxy Player and iPod touch. Will give it a try.

For those interested, here's a bit about them:

We're a startup inside msnbc.com, but we're a fully independent, agnostic news organization. Breaking News is headquartered in Seattle, Washington, and we also have editors based in New York and London. You can read more about what we're doing on our blog or on our @breaking Twitter account. We drink a lot of caffeine.

[tubemonkey]

If I could only choose one company for my entertainment and news, it would be BBC.

[plib]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

If I could only choose one company for my entertainment and news, it would be BBC.

The Beeb has a long tradition of quality programming, largely possible because they're not constrained by having to keep advertisers happy. The fact that the government of the day, of whatever stripe, always seems to moan about their coverage is a definite indication that they're doing it right, to my mind anyway, although they have bought into the "expensive celebrity" culture a little too much in recent years. I don't think someone like David Frost was an expensive celebrity, and he stands head and shoulders above any so called political interviewer I've seen recently.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by plib

The Beeb has a long tradition of quality programming, largely possible because they're not constrained by having to keep advertisers happy.

IMO, it's better than anything we have here in America. NPR and PBS don't even come close.

My eternal thanks to the British taxpayers