Lately I’ve been downloading psychology and philosophy lectures from UC Berkeley to listen to on my short commute to school. Yesterday I came across this gem during a General Psych lecture:
Professor: Anybody watch Senator Tim Johnson last night on the news?
Class: (Silence)
Professor: Okay anybody watch the news?
Class: (Silence….Laughter)
Newsflash: Young people don’t watch the news!
Interestingly enough, nearly the same short discussion happened in a Developmental Psych lecture. Only this professor thought to ask students if they read news sites like MSNBC, BBC, and CNN. She still received that familiar silence.
Are young people getting any news at all?
Admittedly, it’s been months since I’ve been to the BBC, my news site of choice. In fact I only visited it today because I was writing this post. The biggest problem I have with sites like the BBC and CNN is the large amount of information they have. There are hundreds upon hundreds of news stories daily. I never know what to read. They try to make it easier on people by breaking it up into sections - Entertainment, Business, Technology, etc. Even these seem too general for me. I only want to read the funny entertainment news, the business news that deals with marketing, and only the most important pieces of tech news.
I’m picky. Young people are picky. Consumers are picky. If something isn’t completely vital to us, we feel we’ve wasted our time.
Sites like CNN, MSNBC, and BBC will always reign supreme when it comes to online news. But as soon as you step away from general news to look at more specific news categories, you can see that the more niche the news site, the more popular it will be. I chose to look at marketing sites, because I know the most about them. This is only one example. I’d love to see how this breaks down in other industries.
You’d think that these numbers would be reversed, a site like Adweek which is for everyone interested/invested in advertising would be the more popular than a site like Search Engine Watch which is mainly for people interested in search engine optimization. Logically Search Engine Watch visitors would be interested in Clickz, an internet marketing site. Clickz visitors would be interested in a media site like MediaPost, etc. Adweek has a decent interactive section. MediaPost has extensive articles on all forms of internet marketing. Clickz has a large amount of SEO articles mixed in with its content.
People are tired of digging though. They’re leaving general news behind and finding their niche.
So now back to the BBC. Which feed should I subscribe to? Front Page News? Week at a Glance? Business?
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2 Comments
I’m so glad I’m not alone with wanting to read the entertainment section! Big tech stuff, marketing stuff, and britney. Just kidding. But I am very on board with you on this! I like watching some news, but don’t have time. I read headlines from major newsites in my rss reader and pick and choose from there.
Haha, you are definitely not alone. It’s always fun seeing what Britney’s up too. The chick is crazy. I subscribed to the Front Page news, 150+ posts in two days. It was insane. I may do what you suggest though - read the headlines, and pick and choose from there.