My News Consumption
What I’ve come to realize is that I’m a creature of habit. While this assignment only required me to keep track of my news consumption over two days, there are already obvious patterns in not only the way I get my news but also when I get my news.
The first thing I do in the morning is reach for my phone, so I’ve usually read two to three news articles suggested by Facebook by the time I get out of bed. The common thread among all the articles I read in the morning is that they’re all short and sweet. While I enjoy being informed about the top news of the day, I’m not willing to spend more than five minutes on any article when I’ve only recently woken up.
Another major pattern to highlight is that I access most of my news through Facebook. Since I follow several major news outlets on social media — with the exception of Fox News — I find it useful to just scroll through my feeds and click on whatever catches my attention. As a result, I get my news through a variety of media organizations. I read from more established organizations like Washington Post and The New York Times in the morning and appear to prefer BuzzFeed and Huffington Post later in the day. Perhaps my mind responds to catchier headlines — a strong suit for both BuzzFeed and Huffington Post — during the middle of the day when I’ve been in class for hours.
There are large gaps in the middle of my days when I don’t consume any news. These correlate with when I’m attending class or working on a homework assignment. My schedule as a student also affects the number of long-form pieces I read and the type of long-form journalism I interact with. While I enjoy reading long-form journalism, I usually don’t seek them out myself because I’m either getting ready for school in the morning or unwinding at night when I consume news. Essentially, the time I spend on an article peaks at seven minutes unless I’m reading a longer piece for homework.
Outside of watching 20/20 and a short clip from the Daily Show, I consumed all my news in text form. Since I’m usually at school for most of my day, I don’t have access to a television. I don’t subscribe to any newspapers and when I’m driving to and from school, I prefer to listen to music over news. Looking at my data sheets, I found the limited mediums through which I consume news to be the most eye-opening thing I learned through journaling.
With the new insights I’ve gleaned through this exercise, the best way for news organizations to reach an audience like me is to invest all their funding into their respective digital departments. Media isn’t dying, it’s just being consumed in new ways — for me, that’s overwhelmingly on my smartphone and through Facebook.
