Where I Get My News

[digitS']

Twitter, of course.

Okay ... pull yourself together ... maybe a tall glass of water ... you don't want to get the hiccups after all that laughter ... I hope you didn't hurt yourself!

No, it's easy. I think doing a little individual research is all it takes. That, and don't crowd yourself into a corner of an echo chamber. Include a little balance.

I very nearly stopped using Twitter when I started with the tablet and their mobile version. I guess what it was doing was giving me, like, 28 recent tweets then just showing where I had left off before, like, 24 hours previous. Using Twitter allows me to use words like "like" ... no, I don't really use it to follow my "crew." I think 2 accounts might be called for if I wanted to do that.

Now, the news! Apparently, Twitter has corrected things so that I'm no longer stuck with the last half an hour of chatter then, yesterday's news. I got pretty frustrated!

If you like somebody like (I'll stop with the likes) Brian Williams, you may not find much that he is tweeting - or, having his intern tweet much, or very interesting stuff. Look at his followers, the ones in the "industry." Check out the investigative reporters. Get down to your locals and all the way to foreign correspondents. Use various news services to broaden your news sources - the British speak the same language, just try not to get stuck in a stovepipe ... seems I called it an echo chamber already.

If you have 20 of the chattering class in your Twitter feed, you are probably getting deeper perspective than what you'll find on the 6 o'clock news. These people "talk" to each other on Twitter. They share theirs and others news stories in links. Up to the minute - you couldn't get it quicker. Hang out with the guy on the Turkish border, camped outside the CDC, wherever. You will have one of your favs "retweeting" something he/she posted, then you can go to that person and get the blow by blow...

Don't want or have time for that? Relax. You don't need to. Find that calm voice on the radio and see what's on the most recent transcript or tap into the online podcast. Twitter is just an easy way to find it so you don't have to have the radio on all the time.

It's about choosing your own path and what interests you.

Steve

 

[Ridgerunner]

Where do I get the news? I read the daily newspaper: front section, comics to see what's going on in the world, sports, editorials and letters to the editor to get my daily laughs, national and international sections. I have to laugh at the editorials and letters to the editor. Otherwise I'd cry.

I watch the evening news, national and local at 5:30 and 6:00 on NBC or CBS.

I see what's trending on Yahoo. Out of 100 Yahoo "trends" I might open two or three. I think I opened one this morning.

When I'm in the car by myself I usually listen to a local station that plays music that isn't too bad and does not have shock jocks. That's maybe 1 to 2 hours a week. On rare occasions I'll listen to NPR, but that is rare. Other than that the radio is not on. The TV is hardly ever on either other than the news, at least when I'm watching.

 

[journey11]

LOL, I have a Twitter acct, but I've never really used it. You make it sound so easy, Steve! I'm nearly convinced to give it another look. I killed my facebook acct awhile back because I hated the compulsion to have to check it all the time or else be buried in more posts than I had time to deal with (and people get mad at you on there if you don't keep up with their business!) I filtered and blocked and did all that I could to narrow it down. I did end up getting another FB recently under a pseudonym so I could just keep up with a couple of groups that I needed info from (now that people hardly communicate or keep you in the loop any other way.) Ughhhh...I don't know. I don't have much time to get online anyway. I have to save room for TEG!

 

[Jared77]

Well now I feel like a recluse.

I don't really keep up on things. I get snippets on my drive in and back from work but with my schedule I work 2-3 24/hr shifts a week so I often miss things.

But having been on the scene where the "story broke" and then to see the report of it later or be told about it and see how glaringly wrong it was I stopped keeping up.

I tried a few different news outlets but they all had their "interpretation of events" and I realized it's all just spin.

I kept a closer tab on events when my brother in law was deployed but since he didn't re-up with the Army I went back to my old habits.

I openly admit part of it is I get enough at work that it's refreshing to just "unplug". Go home hug my family, get my hands in the dirt, and spend some time outside.

TEG is honestly the only thing I check online when I'm not at work. Facebook? Nope. Newspaper I pick up when I'm at the barber shop if none of the old men are there to shoot the breeze.

Interesting that Twitter is a primary news feed. It's interesting how technology keeps changing but the facts don't. Just his people receive them.

But to me "news" is how school went for my oldest daughter. A breaking story is her going all the way across the monkey bars, or my youngest cutting another tooth. On site reports include of a "big buck" while cutting wood at my father in laws, or that there's a change in the air pressure so the fishing will be great tomorrow.

Is it a little Mayberry? Yeah maybe, but are we not entitled to a reprieve from ISIS, unsecured borders, Obamacare, and the Kardashians?

 

[baymule]

@Jared77 I would "like" your post 10 times if I could!

I am like @journey11 I have a Facebook account, but hardly ever post on it. it is mostly a bunch of forwarded crap like I get on my emails from my &$@* brother-in-law. Really? Don't you people have anything to say? Is the best you can do is hit the forward button for yet another syrupy-sweet poem that you did not write? Gag.

I love TEG for my "friendly news" and to chat with my friends. Here I can engage in my passion-gardening- ad nauseum and I don't get that "OKAAAAY, you're a weirdo" response. We are all garden weirdo's!

For what's up in the world, the evening news or a short dose of Fox is sufficient. I also check Yahoo news and read a couple of them. There are other sites I frequent that give more than I wanted to know.

Twitter? I shouldn't knock it, cause I haven't tried that yet. I thought is was limited to a few characters, how can you get the news in just a couple of sentences?

 

[digitS']

Oh, I like all of these responses! You have given some thought to what is important to you.

Twitter isn't the news. It connects me to the stories, so I may be reading about things in Bloomberg, a local teevee station in Ohio or 20 miles away, the Houston Chronicle, or some retired economist's blog.

The reporters will sometimes argue but usually, it's just that they are drawing attention to something.

Here are the subjects of the most recent tweets on my Twitter feed: technology vs globalization relative to US job losses, NC polling for statewide elections, arguments in a Senate hearing, and a pitcher's debut in the majors, with stats. Only the first has a story link but I see that all of the next 6 do. So, if any of these 10 things hold an interest to me, I have 7 links to the news story. Actually, one without a link is a retweet from person assigned to the "beat." I could follow her daily for continuous coverage.

Staying on top of things minute by minute is risky, I've learned. There isn't an intervening editor. The reporters will share rumors and make guesses. It's okay, I won't be screaming and running into the street! However skewed, a report will show up after some time and I can compare that to the earlier chatter.

It is easily overwhelming but I have learned to value how wide I can cast a net. Within that circle, I can go to almost any depth I choose/have time for. I can also choose when.

Steve

 

[NwMtGardener]

I've just recently converted to getting my wider-world news from Reuters web site, i just feel like there's not so much "fluff."

Other than that, i follow a lot of local and regional news outlets on facebook. As well as my favorite national parks, wildlife refuges and a montana birders group. I LOVE facebook for keeping me up to date on what my friends and interesting groups are doing, and i "weed out" any groups or people or posts that annoy me. I find that i have a lot of control over what i see, but it does take a little time and effort to learn how to control it.

 

[thistlebloom]

I guess I don't want to keep up.
I used to be on top of world and national events, but just got thoroughly disillusioned and stopped paying attention.
Rightly or wrongly I feel guilty about that.

Now I borrow audio books from the library and that's what I listen to spring summer and fall when I drive, and while I'm working. At home in the evenings I'm on TEG, or watch a tv show or two. If it's really important I'll read about it online. But I limit it drastically.

There's enough depressing stuff to deal with right now getting through my parents estate, the news just sucks me down a deeper hole.

 

[digitS']

I think I have a fairly optimistic nature. Negatives don't have much allure for me. My mother wasn't supposed to be able to have children . I look back on what my ancestors went through, what people, just people, went through in their lives - I feel lucky. We have come a long, long way.

When I think of some of the d'@$$ things people used to do and believe was right, when I think of the d'@$$ things I used to do and believe - we have come a long, long ... well, there's still a ways to go.

I have a Yahoo and an inbox mailbox. I've tried to beat yahoo into what I want from it. It's probably because I have not spent enough time trying that I'm not too happy with it. Inbox uses Reuters and I think that it has the same links to news stories that the Reuters Twitter account links.

Steve

 

[digitS']

Here's what the yahoos at Yahoo did this morning:

They put a big blue square with an arrow in it right in the middle of their AP photographs of the lunar eclipse. Apparently, this was to help us navigate from one picture to the next.

Here is the Sydney Morning Herald: (pictures of the moon from Oz)

I had to look for those on Twitter but they weren't hard to find .

Steve