The fractured ways people hear about big news in 2024

niemanlab.org

3 points·coloneltcb··4 comments

"Fractured" has a negative connotation, but the existence of many news sources is a good thing.

In a prior life I took a bunch of journalism courses. I am not a journalist, of course, but those courses were enlightening and really improved how I relate to the news.

One of the things I learned was: have as many different sources of news (from as many different viewpoints) as possible.

As an instructor taught us: if you're getting your news from only a couple of places or they are all of a similar viewpoint, then you're not being informed, you're being indoctrinated.

The same way as always. If the news is important enough, you will get it by word of mouth.

I was once told (30-40 years ago), "Don't bother listening/watching the news on radio/TV. It only wastes your precious time." And the next sentence was "If the news is important enough, you will hear about it almost immediately, one way or another."

I don't ever bother with the news, but I heard about Trump's shooting literally within minutes of it happening.

This.

I've been intentionally avoiding all US election-related news because none of it is of any real value to me since there's no action I can take about any of it, and paying attention to it was very bad for my emotional health.

And yet, I heard within hours about Biden withdrawing.

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