Tuesday, April 24, 2012

How I Get My News

I must admit back in the good old days I used to enjoy going to Starbucks after a long day of school and just sit there with my large (i hate saying venti what is up with that why not just say large...) white chocolate peppermint mocha frapp (not the healthiest choice oh well) and sneaking away with a copy of the NY Times.  It became sort of a weekly ritual while I was in Junior College and even though I never really retain news for very long i did enjoy feeling like a badass intellectual sort of person.  Even though I kept this up for a good two years spending way to much money on coffee I eventually fell out of this tradition.  Like I have said I've never really been much to care about the news I usually just stumble upon a story and become interested in it but something changed all of that something happened that even the newspapers couldn't compete with for my attention.  This amazing thing is the smartphone.

Once I got my first smartphone I downloaded a BBC news app and instantly fell in love with it.  I loved checking the news and seeing what was going on in the world because with so many choices I always found some category that interested me.  I remember a discussion that we had in class about how print media is becoming obsolete and I wanted to raise my hand and say something but I was a bit to shy, but what I always have thought is that with the convenience of an app on my phone that gives me the news and also how this generation seems to prefer reading from screens rather then paper it seems nothing but natural that we are moving to an online form of news.  Its so much easier to carry around the news in my phone rather then walk around with a newspaper sticking out of my back pocket.  Someday the nostalgic sense of print media will be lost to the generation before mine but in the big scheme of things does it really matter, I mean all things come and go, is it so important that print media remain an important tool of journalism? My answer to that would be No because what is important is that the news be made and that journalists continue to spread their stories around the world to as many people as possible whether they see it on tv, read about it online or on their phones, hear it over the radio, or read about it in the paper.  What matters is that the news is available, and well to me it is.

1 comment:

  1. You make some interesting observations about how smart phones are changing patterns of news consumption and how authoritative and often traditional news outlets (such as the BBC and also the New York Times) are gaining more readers thanks to the rise of apps for smart phones. I think providing links to specific information will be important for online readers. For example, many might be interested in reviews of specific news apps or your analysis of why the BBC app is particularly good. Tech reviews tend to have a built in audience, and you can use keywords to attract more readers. I also broke your entry into paragraphs, since "chunking" information often improves readability.

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