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[PrettySquareGal]

How often do you read the news online?

Do you see constant news coverage as a positive or negative in your life?

 

[WEEGEE]

NEWS FOR NEWS SAKE

As a member of the press (staff photographer for a meduim sized urban daily owned by Hearst) i sometime think we are so on automatic that it
gets to be news for news sake.

Yes...i need to know ASAP whats going on part home work part habit.


Though while on vacation or assignment in other lands i tend to get focused

on life at hand and abandon my news geeking.

At those times i find i missed nothing that can not wait till another day.

 

[scotrace]

Recovering junkie

It used to be a consuming need to keep up with everything moment by moment. The list of daily sites to read was ridiculous - it was a bookmarked list that I would open in 34 tabs several times a day.

Like WeeGee says, once you learn that it can all wait another day... it's no so critical. Maybe it's a common thing? Once you discover that you can find out so much so quickly, it feels like you must.

Now I check one or two sites a couple of times a day. Canceled my newspaper subscription (once I learned how much of the local news was either made up or written from radio stories). I check NPR when I can.

Most times, I just don't want to know.

 

[Quigley Brown]

The ballot didn't have my choice. I don't watch tv news. I read the paper in the morning with coffee, then check online several times a day...several different sources. Then I discuss the local news online with others in the city paper's forum. I gotta know all the local news since I'm part of it.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I was a reporter/editor/news director for nine years, so I became kind of an information fiend -- at my worst, I'd be reading three daily papers a day, two weeklies, and our local tri-weekly, with the TV and radio constanly on and the AP ticker buzzing in the background. We didn't have the Internet back then, but if we had, I would have had my nose buried in that too.

9/11 actually got me out of that habit. I went cold turkey on news after the first week of wall-to-wall coverage, because I just couldn't take any more. Now, I'm more moderate -- I still read the Boston Globe front to back every day, and might peek at the CNN website occasionally. But I don't watch TV/cable news at all, and confine my broadcast-news intake to NPR -- "Morning Edition" when I get up, and "All Things Considered" while I'm having supper. So I feel like I'm informed, but certainly not overwhelmed.

 

[Doctor Strange]

I grew up in a family of news junkies - three newspapers a day, around five magazines a week, TV news every evening, radio on all the time (including dinnertime) - and my response was to become severely disinterested when I got out on my own. My sister and parents are still news junkies, though now it's mostly continuous TV news and the Internet blogs...

But me, I just visit the NY Times and CNN sites once or twice daily, and watch a few minutes of local news when I'm having my morning coffee (mostly for the weather). I tend to concentrate on entertainment news, but I get enough of the important stuff going on by osmosis. And there's no question that I am in a *much* better frame of mind without constantly flogging myself with bad news. I honestly don't know how people put up with it - I think it's a major cause of modern neurosis/depression/suicide!

"...And then I sit and watch the news:
There's half a dozen tragedies from which to pick and choose"
- from a song by Iris DeMent whose title I can't recall

 

[PrettySquareGal]

I'm a news addict, and it began after 9/11. It's not good for me at all. I have eliminated TV news and am working on cutting down my online time. I read the WSJ sometimes (makes great guinea pig cage liner, too).

 

[mysterygal]

I check the news online daily (right in the morning with my cup of coffee)...just for the major things going on in the world

 

[The Bingstress]

News for entertainment's sake

The ballot didn't have my choice either. I watch the morning news before going into work (mostly because I enjoy the banter between the cohosts), and check MSN.com a couple times during the day (mostly because I'm procrastinating on a project). Occasionally, I'll read an article posted online from one of the major dailies (e.g., NY Times), but only if I've seen the story teased in one of the many e-newsletters I subscribe to. And since my hubby enjoys watching The O'Reilly Factor in the evenings, I usually get another dose of what's going on in the world, like it or not.

Ironically, although I'm a professional journalist, I'm not a news junkie by any stretch -- in fact, I've found that watching the evening news before bed is flat out hazardous to my health. I fall asleep anxious and stressed out (there's never any GOOD news to report). However, I do like to be plugged in -- probably more with general cultural trends than with hard news happenings. And I subscribe to about a dozen e-newsletters related to my work as a writer and my online ventures.

All of that said, I truly pine for a simpler time when television and the Internet didn't intrude on our every waking thought...when a husband and wife could spend a leisurely morning thumbing through their favorite sections of the local newspaper and sipping strong coffee before the workday began. These days, it's go go go from the moment the alarm rings until your head hits the pillow at night. Is all of this information delivered every nanosecond really necessary?

Hugs & blessings,
The Bingstress

 

[PrettySquareGal]

Sorry about the incomplete poll options.

 

[PrettySquareGal]

These days, it's go go go from the moment the alarm rings until your head hits the pillow at night. Is all of this information delivered every nanosecond really necessary?

Hugs & blessings,
The Bingstress

I think it's doing more harm than good, but it's up to the reader to limit the exposure. I have a hard time doing that. :eusa_doh:

 

[otterhound]

I think news consumption really distorts our perception of the world. If you watch local TV news regularly, you might conclude that your town is a horribly dangerous place to live. But when you compare that to your actual life, you'll (hopefully) find that in real life you never (or very rarely) encounter crime and violence.

Dallas is statistically one of the most crime-ridden cities in the US, but in 30 years of living here, I've only been a crime victim 4 times. And 3 of those were minor property crimes. The 4th was a stolen car that was recovered the same day.

I saw this happen with a friend when she became a mother. She was a local news junkie. This made her a raging paranoid about child molesters. She thought there was a child molester lurking on every street corner. She stressed out needlessly.

The news concentrates all the bad from all over the world into one place. But if you spread that bad out over 6 billion people, I think you'd find that the majority life peaceful lives.

 

[Samsa]

Does "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" count?

 

[LaMedicine]

Can't find my choice, either.
For me, it's the newspaper daily plus TV once or twice a day along with weekly news magazines. Online, occasionally when there's something going on, like the Olympic Games. World Cup Soccer next?

I grew up in the times when it was radio and newspaper, then, later TV added. There was no real time satellite coverage to speak of, until my teen years. As a matter of fact, the first live satellite coverage between the US and Japan was in Nov. 1963, when NHK, the Japanese public broadcast company and a US broadcast network were testing satellite coverage for the Tokyo Olympics due next year. That very first coverage was not the test program scheduled, but the JFK assassination. It's something all my friends here remember, however, I was living in the US at that time, so something I learned about years later.

That said,

These days, it's go go go from the moment the alarm rings until your head hits the pillow at night. Is all of this information delivered every nanosecond really necessary?

Bingstress, I'm with you there. There's too much info, both good and bad, overflowing, and it's not easy to sort out the truth. I feel that too many people do not know how to judge or what to make of all that we are bombarded with. I imagine every single one of us have run into one misconception or another spread by the media, concerning whatever work we do, that gets in the way of us doing an efficient job, or resulting in unwarranted criticism.

Too bad we can't turn the clock around.[huh]

 

[RedPop4]

I think news consumption really distorts our perception of the world. If you watch local TV news regularly, you might conclude that your town is a horribly dangerous place to live. But when you compare that to your actual life, you'll (hopefully) find that in real life you never (or very rarely) encounter crime and violence.

Dallas is statistically one of the most crime-ridden cities in the US, but in 30 years of living here, I've only been a crime victim 4 times. And 3 of those were minor property crimes. The 4th was a stolen car that was recovered the same day.

I saw this happen with a friend when she became a mother. She was a local news junkie. This made her a raging paranoid about child molesters. She thought there was a child molester lurking on every street corner. She stressed out needlessly.

The news concentrates all the bad from all over the world into one place. But if you spread that bad out over 6 billion people, I think you'd find that the majority life peaceful lives.

I agree otter.
I DO want to know what's happening in the world, but it just makes me worked up and angry. Plus I'm not all that fond of many of the sources so many of you rely upon, which also gets me into a negative funk. So I read a bit here and there online as my friends send me links and stories.

I also read their musings on my other board and glean information from them. Makes it easier to have a calm, happy life.

 

[Pilgrim]

I generally scan two newspapers every day, listen to Morning Edition and All Things Considered on NPR (both of which are vastly superior to TV news, more in-depth and, despite what the conservatives would say, normally NPR is pretty politically neutral), and catch at least one local TV newscast in the evening. I tend to spot-check for news online during the day, but only if there's something that grabs my attention.

I have been a radio news reporter - from the school where Edward R. Murrow graduated - and have strong feelings about the crappy and sensationalistic quality of much local reportage. (WHY do you have a live news crew where a car rollover happened? WHY are you devoting two full minites to it?) However, it's important to keep up with what's going on in your area.

 

[Novella]

I used to read the newspaper everyday as part of my breakfast morning routine, but since the subscription ran out I haven't really replaced the paper with any other news source. Occasionally I'll have a peak at the local paper or BBC news online, but I've generally dropped out of being aware of what's going on in the world. News is generally depressing.

 

[Siirous]

I just set CNN.com as my homepage, so when I open up the browser the first thing I see is news. I scan the headlines, which most of the time gives me the jist of stuff, and if an article catches my fancy I read it. That's about it, other than the daily comics.

 

[funneman]

I've coined the phrase "Info-maniac" to describe my news gathering habits.

I'm a radio news anchor, I monitor two Television networks, four or five newspaper and TV websites, plus the Associated Press every morning for six hours.

I probably should disqualify myself, but I'm seeing other members of the fourth estate on this thread also.

 

[Baron Kurtz]

I check the BBC and The Guardian once a day. I try to avoid the 24 hour news media. Most of what they peddle is loosely defined as news - at best! Yahoo news, for example, has at least one headline every day along the lines of "Bush says US will not relent in fight on terrorists". Well, i didn't think he would say that! The problem is that there really isn't that much important news happening so they need to fill their time with, well, filler. For this reason i avoid it.

Listen to "On the Hour" radio show for a scathing critique of such "news" from the early 90s (just after the first gulf war and the rise of satellite television launched the kind of BS "news" on an unsuspecting Britain). "Leading headlines today:

"Cream is good for you, says a recent report that says: cream is good for you."

Reaction to the report has been immediate:

"Finger": Paddy Ashdown.

President Bush: "Overalls"

...

BBC tends to cover the news with less filler. Their political coverage is second to none ...

bk