No news is ... still news

Shared by Editor & Publisher in its daily e-newsletter , Aug. 4, 2011

David Brinkley, whose career spanned 1943 to 1997, ranks right up there among the most trusted voices and journalists in America. His nightly reports on ABC and NBC spanned wars, a moon landing, presidential conventions, and, in his own words*, "2,000 weeks of news." 
In his heyday and my childhood days, news wasn't instantaneous via a tweet or immediately viral via a posting on Facebook or other favorite social network. Instead, our family read it in the Dispatch or waited for the 6 o'clock evening news. Credit cable networks for introducing us to 24/7/365 news in the 1980s.

Brinkley understood the passion of sharing news, and was among the best and most intense of storytellers. With the non-stop cycle in which we indulge today, we can as well share that passion of news. At our fingertips. Immediately. As a consumer or as an originator. In 140 characters. To click to read later or to share with our circle. To blog or leave comment on.

Brinkley's quote gives several questions with regard to news today. Does hyping all news with the same intensity skyrocket stress levels? If we overindulge in a steady stream of news, will the overabundance numb its impact or instead lead us to become news connoisseurs?

The news consumer ultimately judges the worth of the news, nosing out the trivial from the catastrophic. Case in point, here are two examples of posts on my feeds from the past 12 hours: Thought that night would never end. Finally home vs. Death toll from Turkey earthquake rises to over 400 as 2 week old baby is found alive in the rubble. The first is an opinion, the second a fact. The former raises further questioning since the reader is left uncertain what catastrophe the author returned home from: a flat tire? Horrendous traffic? A seemingly endless meeting? A dinner date gone awry? Whatever the cause, the individual is likely not commenting as a survivor of the earthquake. Yet, the emphasis, as Brinkley reminds us, is just as intense as if that were the situation.

It's our role as the author to understand the emotion of our words, and in today's non-stop cycle, let's put our words in perspective. The intensity of the storyteller shouldn't overshadow the intensity of the story. Our goal as the consumer is to understand the difference.


*as cited in One Man's America (2008), George F. Will, Random House, p. 118 (Chapter 15, Lingerie and Duct Tape) : ISBN 0307407861 9780307407863

Where are you getting your news?

Consumers Trust Local News Sites
Marketers will be most impressed by the advertising results reported of news viewers: "Advertising on local TV sites proves to have a strong impact on consumers. A leading 17% of respondents say they can trust products and services advertised on local TV news sites, and a leading 22% say these sites keep them in the know about products and brands in the marketplace."

But, from a PR perspective most helpful are the study results that "indicate a commanding 81% of study respondents consider local TV news to be their most important TV news source. In contrast, 13% selected cable news and only 6% said broadcast network news."
 
Where do I want my pitches carried? Where do I want my stories reported? Within my local news. Not only do viewers value local sources as their most important place to get community information, half also report that they trust their local anchors more, and that they engage the viewers leading them to WANT to watch more local news, according to the study by Frank M. Magid Associates, Inc. and Hearst Television, Inc.
Other study results of interest are from Pew's research  on where Americans get their news and summarized here. The report indicates that we access several sources to compile our news. Only single digits of us--7 percent--retrieve their news from a single source. Sources range from the traditional sources of television, radio and newspapers, to online sources, with the internet now ranking third most popular. Again, as noted above with the most trusted sources, local television grabs the highest ranking, with 78 percent of news consumers, followed by the national networks at 73 percent and online at 61 percent, according to Pew. Most interesting is that we aren't passive news consumers, but that a third of us online are commenting, posting, tagging or creating news content.

Where do you prefer to find your news? For me, having multiple sources rounds out coverage, feeding details that time and space constraints, reporting priorities or editorial perspectives may affect news from the local beat to the global pulse. There's nothing better than the morning cup of java coupled with a skim of the local headlines in the Maryland Independent, followed by an online review of  The Washington Post or The New York Times headlines and then a drive into work accompanied by NPR's news and analysis to feel informed for the day.