I have been having a discussion with someone elsewhere on what constitutes the MSM, and where do people get their news from today. Being old school I still see the 3 big networks, PBS, the cable news networks and the printed media as the MSM. He contends Twitter, Facebook and many of the modern services should be considered MSM.
I realize that what is MSM to you may be a generational thing, although I think, with no numbers to back it up, that things like Twitter and Facebook while reaching large audiences aren’t yet considered “news” sources.
So what does “MSM” mean to you?
So where do you get your news?
Personally I get mine from all over. I still read the paper a few times a week, I listen to the radio, I watch PBS and cable news from time to time depending on what stories are out there. I lean a lot from forums like this one and others.
I find when you talk to people they tend to get info from sources they are comfortable with, that tend to reinforce what they already believe or expect.
I gave up on the physical paper, but I do read the online versions of several (including the local one for me)
In terms of volume, from most to least (not necessarily quality);
CNN .com
Twitter .com
CNN tv
WashingtonPost .com
forums (like here!)
TheGuardian .com
local newspaper websites
BBC .com
Reuters .com
AP .org
NYTimes .com
MSN .com
NPR
Reddit .com
BBC tv
MSNBC tv
Facebook .com
“Big Three” national & world news
local news (same networks)
FoxNews .com
Fox News tv
I typically engage with all of these on any given day. Yes, I have a problem ;)
I sub to Washington Post and private browse pirate NYT and Boston Globe frequently. Aside from that, mostly here, reddit, and the shares of a few trusted friends on FB (e.g., my Puerto Rican friend Marisol’s updates on the situation there). I’ll stop by CNN and The Guardian, but usually as a link from elsewhere rather than an active visit
Reuters – This is where I go everyday to get the basic facts of what is going on in the world.
Politico, al-Monitor – If I want to know more or get some analysis, I go here for stories on domestic politics and the Middle East respectively.
Hurriyet, Naharnet, ABS-CBN, etc. – I have bookmarked news sources from several different countries in case something really important happens there.
PBS Newshour – If I want to see something in video and not just read about it.
QT3 + Reddit – If anything important happens and I don’t catch it myself, I’ll get linked to it here.
Cutting CNN out of my life has done wonders for my mental health and I don’t feel that I’ve lost anything of value. When I had cable, I found that Chinese state media is actually pretty good as long you know what their biases are.
Is Breitbart MSM? Gateway Pundit? The Federalist? Places like these more often than not use single “source” stories that are presented completely out of context or are outright fabrications.
The label MSM can also be defined as media that adheres to journalistic standards and ethics. That doesn’t mean that they cannot be unbiased - Forbes, for example, or The Economist, or (at least minus the opinion pages) the Wall Street Journal. There’s a Shorenstein study that shows the partisanship spectrum of different media outlets, if I can find the link I’ll provide it.
Edit: It wasn’t Shorenstein, it’s a different Harvard study: Partisanship, Propaganda, and Disinformation: Online Media and the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election
Pew also did a survey of news sources - from 2014:
To Scuzz’s question, for me Twitter isn’t MSM in and of itself (I don’t do Facebook) but Twitter is akin to a news aggregator. From there, I read links to sources to numerous to list. And along with American media, I read media from other countries (English language only), including the Siberian Times, which often have great pictorials of Russia’s Far East that are spectacular. (Al Jazeera English version by the way is really pretty good.)
Pretty much in order PBS Newshour, Google News, WaPo, twitter, CNN, WSJ, National Review, Fox (Chris Wallace), NY Times, The Atlantic, Politico, Fivethirtyeight, RealClearPolitics. CivilBeat (local).
I used to “borrow” printed NYT every day front to back and watch PBS on TV. Now I just mostly watch MSNBC, and read forums. I kinda like how CNN is (or seems) less emotional/feely than NBC, but have to share the TV with other people so have no choice. I think I dropped the remote once and it landed on FOX.
My ability to retain information has decreased noticeably over the years too.
MSM to me means broadcast/cable news and printed newspapers with a certain number of subscribers or pages. Nothing that lives mostly on the Internet. Not saying they’re bad, just saying they’re not mainstream.
My town weekly newspaper (free but 4/5 local ads), which probably affects my day-to-day life as much or more than national stuff, and they do a decent job of covering our Boards of Selectmen, Finance, Education, etc meetings and elections. Local rags (not state-wide papers) let me know what meetings I should attend, what my local taxes (which are huge here) are likely to become, what our schools will be teaching, what roads will be getting fixed and who will pay for them. Along with what goof-ball local referenda will be on the next ballet.
Politico (I freeload)
NPR. (I donate)
7, Economist, for my relatively more conservative bent. (paid)
So a liberal mix other than the local paper. I used to subscribe to WSJ to get a relatively reliable conservative perspective, but it became too expensive for me after Murdoch took over. Plus…I didn’t really like it.
Oh, man, the Flagpole. I haven’t thought about that in years. Were you around Athens when the Flagpole was still a stapled together magazine-sized publication?
Also, is the Classic City Live still in publication? My bedroom floor used to be littered with both of these.
I subscribe to WaPo and love that I get news pushes on my browser and my phone. Beyond that I take a lot from NPR, MSNBC, CNN, and even FOXnews while listening to satellite radio on my horrid daily commute. But as others have mentioned, I link to a lot more sources from reddit, QT3, and even from social media.
As a “news” source, I detest twitter. It’s not news, it’s blasted updates, one breath at a time. I equate it to surfing through TV channels but only lingering for 3 seconds on each. Sure, you can see what’s on each channel, sometimes. But you don’t ever get the plot of a show, the expanse of a game, or the full report of news. If twitter wants to be taken seriously as a source of actual news reporting, expand the character limit, as they have promised and tossed around multiple times.
I also find it extremely fitting that Trump has chosen twitter as his method of communication.
My morning news routine these days is going through the headlines on the Bing homepage. I don’t use Bing as a search engine but their headlines feature, instead of linking you to a specific source, runs a search on the topic which returns multiple sources. That allows me to scan the headlines from various perspectives.
If I want to know more, I’ll look for the headline that seems most informational and least slanted. USA Today, The Guardian and Washington Post probably get the most click through from me, followed by the network news links. I’ll also usually look for a local source if it’s not a national or international story.
I should add that not using Bing as my primary search engine seems to less the bubble effect on the headline searches — I see a pretty even mix of neutral liberal and conservative sources.
