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I’ve had it.
Mainstream media has long been a gigantic pet peeve of mine. Journalism is now about ratings and ad revenue. News is now about entertaining people, and that’s a big problem. Instead of a journalist standing by their principles to report the truth honestly, we see how behind-the-scenes politics run the major news media outlets.
In addition, we hear more about the entertainment world than anything else. Case in point: the Michael Jackson death. Now, I would be a hypocrite to sit here and complain about the news coverage entirely, because I was glued to a lot of it for the first few days, like many people. And rightfully so: his death was a big cultural moment in our generation, whether you liked him or not. But after the first day or two of his name dominating the headlines, coverage should have been exclusively to the “Entertainment” section of every news website. But it stayed on top – MSN.com and CNN.com continues to run “legacy” stories and headlines theorizing on the cause of death.
But it doesn’t stop there – headlines about Lindsay Lohan breaking up with her “girlfriend”, a DJ nobody knows dying of a drug overdose, a couple with 24 kids getting a divorce because of their TV show about them being a couple with 24 kids – the entertainment world continues to take over “news” and get everybody’s attention.
Pictured (L-R): Serious journalism, earth-shattering impacts, and life-changing information.
Now, relationships are something you should care about, and deaths should not be undermined. However: those are things that are incredibly important to the people involved, not you. Instead of studying the personal lives of everyone else, why not go out and enjoy your own personal life? Guess what – we each have one!
It spills over into the political world, too. Media is swarming around the wrong things, like the President getting a dog.
Pictured: The issues affecting our nation.
MSN.com has been my main news site for some time now. And I’m not alone – those who use Windows’ default Web browser (Internet Explorer) will see that page more than any other, as it is the default start page for IE. If you’re not technically savvy, you might think that this is the home page of the entire internet, or they don’t know how to change it. MSN was fine for what it was, but its latest creation has gotten on my last nerve: The Wonderwall.
Apparently those at MSN felt we needed a ridiculously confusing interface that slides you through news stories and endless pictures. Yup, this is great for people with halfway-average computers that take a bit to render all this garbage. I “love” having to decide whether I want to read more story or see more photos of the person in question. Give me a break! I finally got to the point where I deleted the MSN bookmark from my Google Bookmarks.
Why you should do the same:
- Stop putzing around with celebrities’ private lives. Aren’t we done with this yet? What makes all this stupid gossip so crucial to our daily lives? Just enjoy the movie/TV show/music that they produce and leave them alone. Find some real role models in your life and pay attention to their lives instead.
- Stop information overload. Most “news” on websites are useless anyway. They don’t have any impact on your life, so just let it be. Make something out of your life instead of wasting so much time reading about somebody else’s.
- You might be getting swayed. It’s become pretty obvious on both sides of the bipartisan field that many “news” sites are inserting their own political leanings into their articles. Look for the facts and make your own opinions.
So I’m not on MSN. I’m not on CNN. I’m actually not on any mainstream news website anymore. So how do I get late-breaking news of real importance? I’ve got a few approaches that, when working together, don’t allow me to miss a beat:
Google Reader
I subscribe to blogs based on my interests. That means that when big news hits that is covered by one of those topics, chances are somebody will blog about it. As long as I’m up-to-date in Google Reader, I’m up-to-date on most of the news that is actually relevant to me.
Twitter, Part 1
If something important happens, it’ll pop up on Twitter. In fact, in most cases, word is going to spread about the event on Twitter much faster than it would on MSN. Michael Jackson’s trip to the hospital and subsequent death? I learned about all of it on Twitter about 20 minutes before it hit any major news outlets. If something is shocking, people will talk about it. So I just watch for news from the people I’m following. Done and done.
Twitter, Part 2
So nobody I’m following is talking about anything on Twitter. Then I look at the “Trending Topics”. You’ll find this on Twitter’s search, or in my case (and the screenshot to the left), the search box in HootSuite.
Twitter tracks what people are talking about. All you have to do is click on the trend and you’ll see what everybody’s saying. Guaranteed that, if it’s news, you’ll find several links to news sources about whatever happened. Today, you can see people are talking about Jay-Z for his MTV outburst of jackassery, as well as the new trailer for New Moon. They are also discussing Tila Tequila’s altercation with Shawne Merriman.
These stories aren’t always going to be big-time events. It could just be entertainment news. But it’s easier to ignore the term rather than have to ignore a giant headline, stupid picture, and everything else hogging your space.
Your friends and family
Patrick Swayze died yesterday. I didn’t hear about it on MSN. I didn’t even hear about it on Twitter. I got a text message from my brother. If you’ve got friends and family who know about what you are interested in, you’ll probably hear news from them. Heck, you could even just check out Facebook status updates, which would also clue you in to what’s going on.
My newest discovery: Google News
Doggone it, Google! You keep getting cooler and cooler! I, like many others, am familiar with Google News for when I am looking for a certain topic. For example, when I heard rumblings that my old quarterback, Brett Favre, was going to sign with the hated rivals, the Minnesota Vikings, I typed “favre” into a Google search, and then clicked “News” at the top of the page and I could look through all the real developments from media outlets all over the nation. But I found Google News yesterday, and it looks to finally be a solid replacement for MSN to check out headlines. Here’s why:
#1. The clean, easy layout
This is what I see when I open Google News: top stories at the top. Plus, they are updated incredibly frequently. On the far left side, I can sort through my news topics. If I just want to see the latest entertainment headlines, I can click “Entertainment” and that’s all I’ll see. Or, I can scroll down, as the sections are laid out very clearly and simply. In the middle-left, I see the latest headlines and accompanying pictures. On the right side, I can view the most popular articles currently, and towards the bottom I can see what names are dominating headlines. It doesn’t take an hour and a half to render the page because, like everything Google, it’s simple and clean, optimized for any computer.
#2. Customizable organization
When you click “Edit this page”, a drop-down box appears that will allow you to organize your news topics in any order you’d like on the page, just by dragging and dropping. When I rearranged mine, I was able to put Entertainment news at the bottom, so I only have to look at it when I want to.
In addition, you can edit how many stories are shown in each section, and you can add and remove sections at will.
#3. YouTube News
I like to see a news story once in a while, and any news story that has an accompanying video has a little YouTube icon in it. Clicking on it brings up the video right there in the page. It doesn’t interrupt, and you still get your news.
#4. News from any source, in one spot
Underneath every news article, you see the option to drill down and read the news from specific, high-profile sites, or I can list all the news articles talking about it. This makes it easy to view the topic from different perspectives, allowing you to develop your own opinions, as well as gather every fact you can from every source you can.
#5. Local news and recommendations for you
If you have a Google account, you can tell Google News where you’re from, and they will add a tab related to your city’s news, with all the features that other topics get. This simplifies the news-gathering process for me. Plus, it can recommend news articles for me based on my search history. I could care less if Google wants to know about my searches about the Green Bay Packers and WordPress templates. They can have that information.
#6. Share the news with others
Instead of copying-and-pasting the URL to the story into a new email to share with somebody, just click “Email this story”. Easy, and it encourages finding out news from friends rather than websites.
We all need to keep tabs on the news, but the newspeople aren’t interested in keeping us informed anymore. They want us entertained. Fight back – ditch your MSNs, your CNNs, and other corporate news sites. Get the news you want, when you want it, and when you need it. Do you have any tips for getting real news? Share them with us in the comments!
Tom is an entrepreneur and freelance writer, working out of his apartment full-time, or wherever he feels like taking his laptop. He doesn't take long European vacations or blogs on the beach. He's an Average Joe that took control of his life. He wants you to do the same.
