Who's News?

[susandennis]

I watch an hour of local TV news (30 mins on each of two stations) most nights and an hour of national news (30 mins on each of two networks) and then the 1st 15 minutes or so of the 10 p.m. local news and the first 15 minutes of the 11 p.m. local news.  And I read one local newspaper every day.  Oh and listen to about an hour of NPR every morning.  (Most of this, by the way, is while doing other things....  I don't focus on this much news ever day, I promise.)

I read my LJ friends page religiously and keep up with a fair number of blogs on everything from technical tips to what bling jimcarson has added to his home appliances lately.

I do not read a lot of news news online.  I rarely go to any news websites.  Or news commentary websites. 

And it sometimes strikes me how different my view of what constitutes current event is. 

This morning on my friends page, drewan notes his surprise that there has not been so much coverage of Tammy Faye Baker's death.  (And one of his commenter's says the same thing.)  I, on the other hand, was amazed and surprised at how very much coverage her death got! 

I lived in Charlotte, NC when she and Jim were growing their little franchise.  They were the talk and the joke of what was then a fairly small town.  A friend of mine won several journalism awards covering their downfall. 

So I was more than a little surprised at the amount of coverage she got and the respect with which her life was covered.  Even as the world was far more focused on Harry Potter.

Interesting, though, the different views of current events.  I think I need to hunt up some new sources.

Comments

[geordie.livejournal.com]

I'm almost the exact opposite, I read the BBC news, CNN and sometimes Guardian and Telegraph on-line. I can't be bothered with national tv news because it's almost all adverts and repetition, they seldom seem interested in telling you much of what's going on. So for me the Tammy Faye death story was a couple of links I didn't click after finding out who she was and how she died.

[susandennis]

And, see, pop ups and flashing ads are exactly why I don't like news websites!! I turn pop ups off but what am I missing. I leave pop ups on and I get links to My Psychic Healer.

CNN makes me nuts. USA Today makes me nuts. I need to find one that does not make me nuts.

[(Anonymous)]

I like Yahoo News, actually, because it gathers together so many sources, is configurable for what I want up top (if I log in anyway), and I can get the first paragraph by hovering over the link (mostly - my local news doesn't support that, alas) and decide if I even want to click.

[susandennis]

Oh I like Yahoo News... And I remembered Google News... excellent.

[geordie.livejournal.com]

Pop ups? What are those? I use Firefox with Addblock Plus, Flashblock and NoScript for CNN, so I almost never see an advert. Very little in the way of annoying adverts can penetrate that shield. Very occasionally I have to use IE without protection and it amazes me that people tolerate the sites the way they are intended to be.

[susandennis]

Ah... see you have far more patience with browser add ons and add ins that I do. I don't tolerate sites the way they are intended to be if I don't like 'em. I just don't ever go there again. I'm lazy!

Adblock

[jimcarson.livejournal.com]

Like geordie wrote, when I have to use IE for something, I'm appalled at how many whizzy-bling (the bad kind) ads there are. Adblock is the plugin of the gods. There's also a complementary Adblock Filterset that periodically updates its rules, which is useful for Yahoo as they're on top of the latest advertainment. You can also right-click ad block. Thumbs up!

As for news, I read the BBC feed. I also still have access to an online pay news service (soon to be Murdoch's newest acquisition) from when I contracted at at you-know-where.

You'd be surprised how many appliances you can bling with a 36' roll of red flames decal. :)

well ...

[henare.livejournal.com]

the first news i had of it came from cnn's larry king (with whom she had an interview just one day before) ... i don't think many people saw that as authoritative so it required some chasing-down ...

[howeird]

Tammy Faye is dead? I missed that.
Since you saw all the massive coverage, I have two questions:
1. How could they tell?
2. How many cosmetics companies did she take with her?

[jimcarson.livejournal.com]

On last week's clip from the Larry King show, she was literally a human skeleton at 65 pounds.

I was surprised to read she'd reinvented herself (http://www.slate.com/id/2170989/).