How the Face of News Has Changed
NEIRAD enilno edition
“Did the Wolly Mammoth Pop Collars?” This is the kind of unconventionalnews story found on Web sites like Rocketboom.com -- sites that receive millions of hits every day from teens all over nation.
Steering away from traditional news sources such as the newspaper, teenagers today are looking for new ways to access daily news presented in a more creative and exciting fashion. Topix, Drudge, Digg, Rocketboom, and Twitter are all popular sources that kids use to find both local and national news and even create their own.
Upon first glance at Topix.com, sophomore Meg Del Col said, “I would definitely use Topix. It’s colorful and combines many sources of news into one website.”
However, Rocketboom.com, a site that produces a video on current news every day, didn’t impress Meg. “I can already watch news videos on YouTube,” Del Col commented.
While these reliable news sites have all seen considerable success over the past year, what about the other sources kids are using? Are they credible? In many cases, they are not. It is unclear whether teens are able to identify an opinionated blog as an illegitimate source, or if they believe everything they read on the Internet as factual.
The reason why students are overlooking newspaper and television as sources of news is due the Internet, which is more engaging and interesting for them. Kids would rather chat with friends on Facebook or update their profiles on MySpace than watch CNN News that caters to the adult world anyway. Web sites such as Facebook and MySpace have stolen the attention of this generation of teenagers.
Gossip posted by fellow bloggers is much more enjoyable than reading an article about the crisis on Wall Street. The online world has made it so easy for information to be spread rapidly throughout a huge community of people, which has made print sources practically obsolete for kids.
According to the Kaiser Family study of 8-19 Millennials, “They [the bloggers] have more power on their computers than most professional journalists did 10 years ago,” which illustrates the fact that with the proper resources, bloggers/mainstream population, can create their own news. “I would much rather chat on Facebook and read articles on People.com than look at boring articles on CNN.com,” sophomore Taiki Miki said, expressing the feelings of many teens.
While young people find social networking entertaining, what are they actually learning? Traditional news sources are filled with important and current content, while though social networking sites may be fun, they are not educating the next generation. The next generation demands easy-to-read, gossip-filled content, which is why entertainment news sources like People.com are so popular. “The news business continues to struggle with…an industry evolution that is seeing people’s advertising and news consumption habits shift at a pace that has us struggling to keep up,” Society of Professional Journalists President Dave Aeikens said. Current teens no longer want to read about what’s happening in the world, and therefore are forgetting about the real information they need to be receiving. Caught in the world of supply and demand, Web sites want to provide their readers with what consumers want—which is the opposite of news sources like the newspaper.
Can traditional news sources be saved? Right now it’s not looking too great for newspapers such as The New York Times, or magazines such as Sports Illustrated. When the consumers dominate the market, it’s hard for traditional sources to survive.
