Sunday, January 18, 2015

What’s Your Go-To Media?


The New York Times is still the most prominent, most insightful, most professional news source out there, though it feels like it’s fallen a notch over the years.  I subscribe to the “paper of record” with pride and pleasure, but beyond The Times, what’s your go-to news source?

I start each morning with The New York Post, small part news, large part Maxim meets Sports Illustrated and People.  It’s a worthy companion for the bathroom.  On the way to work, via Metro North (train), I get serious and read The Times.

During the day, colleagues, friends, and family will act as a collective newswire and send me links to who died, what crashed, or what a politician said.  Their sources vary, but usually it’s from CNN.com, Associated Press, or The New York Times.  Everyone has news alerts and Google Alerts set on all kinds of people and topics.  I don’t have any alerts but I will search my smartphone for news by going to CNN.com or Fox.com, and then I troll through other platforms like Yahoo or AOL or Google, which merely aggregate traditional media sources.  After scanning and skimming for 10 minutes I’m left with the feeling there are only six stories being covered by 600 media outlets.  Theoretically, different sources and sites should be breaking different stories with real scoops and exclusives.

I often read six papers each workday – NY Times, Post, Daily News, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and Washington Post.  I love to see out of town papers when I travel, such as The Boston Globe, Miami Herald, or Philadelphia Inquirer.  You might think I do this as a laborious task for my job, but I do it out of love and curiosity.  I’m a news junkie in an era of low journalism practices.

I’m not often in my car, but when I am, I default to WINS 1010 or WCBS 880, both news stations.  On commercial breaks I skip to NPR, or for a laugh, I listen to the right-wing diatribes of 770 AM.  Radio is not fulfilling because there’s little depth, repetition, and not much diversity in terms of what gets covered in between incessant traffic, weather, and sports updates. If I had Sirius XM Satellite Radio, I would get Howard Stern.

I don’t regularly read any blogs or any websites, but I will sample stuff online.  Many friends like The Huffington Post.

Television is the weakest of all mediums.  I go to CNN and get disappointed in 30 seconds.  Then people on Fox yell at me.  Then it’s on to News 12 a 24-hour Westchester news station that’s actually decent for what it is, but it’s still filled with crime, weather, political scandal, and HS sports.

Where’s a news junkie to go?  Where do you go to be informed?

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Brian Feinblum’s views, opinions, and ideas expressed in this blog are his alone and not that of his employer, Media Connect, the nation’s largest book promoter. You can follow him on Twitter @theprexpert and email him at brianfeinblum@gmail.com. He feels more important when discussed in the third-person. This is copyrighted by BookMarketingBuzzBlog © 2015

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