My News-Gathering Habits

Tiffany Baez
Sep 4, 2018 · 2 min read

As a journalist, it is my responsibility to not only gather my own information for my own stories, but also to be aware of the stories taking place in and around the world. As such, I should be spending extensive amounts of time making sure I am up to date on current events and the latest news.

Unfortunately, my news-gathering habits are non-existent.

In spite my otherwise strong curiosity about what is going on around me, I find it tedious, time-consuming, and overwhelming to check all of those news sites/apps and go through all of those articles trying to absorb information about what is going on in the world. Such apps also take up space on my phone, space that I did not have before I got a new phone.,

I get most of my news from Facebook, Tumblr, and occasionally Amino, by either scrolling through my feed or talking with my friends on those apps. I recognize that this is an extremely inefficient and deficient way of obtaining information, and I would very much like to change my habits.

I currently have 4 news sites bookmarked on my laptop, set to open as default pages whenever I open my browser. These are the New York Times, Syracuse Post Standard, News Junky, and WRVO. I used to check these sites regularly when I first bookmarked them. However, nowadays I rarely actually check these sites upon opening my browser, and the tabs usually end up closed before I even glance at their home pages. This is a habit I would very much like to do away with, and hope to eradicate by the end of September.

I plan on downloading a few news apps to my phone. My hope is that the banner notifications will allow me to stay up to date on the latest news more easily, and make checking such sites less of a hassle.