How do you read the news?

RSS feeds are my friends....

For work I am constantly searching news articles pertaining to the university, especially the college of science. In the process, I'll come across an interesting news article that has nothing to do with the university.

I'll visit websites of local news entities both in my current town and places back home. I like to keep up to date on the happenings back home, but it's not usually exciting.

 

Usually from friends ... offline and online, and I follow the links they give me.

I used to feel disconnected from the news because it was newspaperocentric. There was something about newspapers which seemed to exude the aura of 'keep reading Meeeeee'. The agenda of the paper was read -> buy again etc.

I understand that. Me and my friends want each other, and want to be wanted. I'd rather be friendocentric in my gathering of information. Masses of drought fires near San Antonio mean more to me than the woad shortage in the North of england, because my darling honey in Texas and her foster mother are nearly hospitalized by the smoke on the air. And anothe dear friend's house was in danger of being flooded until a week or two ago.

I prefer the meaning which evolves with my immediate peers than that which is handed down to me as 'important'. I do not trust the agendas of those who structure and sequence the info.

Disclaimer: I am not astute in these matters, and whilst I, albeit shamefacedly, express an opinion, I feel out of my depth when it comes to making sense of world affairs.

 

Ever since the first Gulf War (Desert Storm) I've used as many sources as I can find. In the first hour of news casts, switching between; CNN, MSNBC, FOX and local news. I was sure I was watching 4 different events. It kind of opened my mind to the bias of the media.

Now I use the built in news feeds in FireFox. I use iGoogle for a home page and have 15+ feeds for 'news' on one page and 40+ feeds for Tech news on another. I read the local papers and news mags when I have a chance and listen to local news radio, which in my area covers Seattle to Vancouver. I get a good dose of diverse opinion from radio. I rarely watch news on the TV, but when I do, I used the 'News channel' on DirecTv and watch 6 channels simultaneously. I use Reddit as a source of events that I can Google and learn more about. I also read several different non-mainstream sources online. Mother Earth News and several conspiracy sights. Yeah, yeah, I know conspiracy sights are nonsense. But you would be amazed at the info you can glean from them. Often their ideas are based on actual facts that mainstream media seems to ignore, which shed a whole new light on an event. At one point I had wire feeds of the major news services all bookmarked so I could read the raw reports before the editor smeared his hands and opinion all over a story. I don't know what happened to the bookmarks, but don't miss them either.

It would be outstanding to have one source, that was just the facts, without the political color added. But alas I have yet too find one. So I use roughly 70 sources to cull the bullshit and hype from the apparent facts. I also visit, read and occasionally post on wide range of political forums as well.

 

The majority of my news comes from the BBC, either reading their news site online, or TV news on the odd occasion. The remainder comes either from friends linking specific articles to me on Facebook, or coming across an interesting article while working (on researching automating news media analysis), which could come from any number of sources.

 

Since my work is taking care of the newspaper layout, I tend to only glimpse the actual news and headlines to spot any errors. Even if I would have been at work the night before, I like to "read" the printed paper through in the morning.

I hear news from TV, when it's on; in the car radio, when I'm driving. In the net, the daily topics are pretty much the same on various portals. At work journalists (the smarter lot) discuss these topics all the time. I must admit, I rarely go into details about articles, if it's politics or economics. I really should though.

From local news, I read the society news: dead/born/married etc. Some sports also, results sometimes.

 

I look through Drudge Report once in awhile

 

Used to read the papers, but they are a day or two behind other than local news. I use mostly American internet sites for world news and two days later read the same news on the Canadian sites.

 

A lot from the net... CNN, BBC, Digg, even Al-Jazeera (English) and Pravda for completely different viewpoints.

Newspaper for local news. Newsmagazines for more in-depth coverage and passing the time.