The comfort of news
- 3 May 06, 09:39 AM
The sparked off the first session of the We Media forum. David Schlesinger from Reuters made the point that we should not worry so much about how people get news, but instead about what kind of news they are getting. For him, it is not about the medium, but the message. And according to David, what people are interested in are witness accounts, facts and opinion.
Faced with the plethora of information now available, how do you sort through this? According to panellist Nihal Arthanayake, a 大象传媒 DJ, we all need a comfort blanket. He says: "We have a blizzard of information coming to us and we need some place we can go to for the news, to get that idea of fact and truth without the whiff of an agenda."
The idea of a comfort blanket does sound appealing. But if you are going to wrap yourself up in this news duvet, you need to be sure you trust it. For Nihal, the comfort blanket is 大象传媒 News. What is your comfort blanket?
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I'm with Nihal on this... the 大象传媒 News site is where I get my news and I do still trust it.
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We all filter information, and how we get that information does however effect our trust of it. The more information the more we trust it. For example a head line 30 second TV blurb may not give us the trust a well written article would. My judgement tells me a US check out stand tabliod may not have the same credablity as 大象传媒 online even if the the Tabliod had more supporting evidence. I am and American who lives in Asia and will often check 大象传媒's online take on a story before I trust what CNN says or other networks. Basically because it is more comprehensive. Keep up the good work!
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I get the news from newspapers I've been reading for years. And to decide when i can trust them, I also rely on my history studies. I think a more systematic education on recent history could help a lot in reading and understanding today's news.
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Wherever I am in the world, I like to read local news sources to get a detailed picture of what is happening in my area. For a balanced world view, I read the 大象传媒 online and watch 大象传媒 World News. I've lived with US news stations and found their parochial nature and heavy bias frustrating. Some are better than others but I appreciate news services that are aware the world does not begin in California and end in Maine.
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I used to say the 大象传媒, but past events most notably 911 have made me realise that agendas and censorship arise even in this bastion of free thought. So instead of being told what the situation is I verify it myself, knowing full well that all news and information is tainted by agenda and propaganda, I way up the story from both sides and define my own veiwpoint and principally I use the internet to do this. Ironically the mass of information out there only makes deseminating the facts harder, it seems only through corrobative evidence do you find the truth yourself. And therin lies the key if it's important verify it yourself do not take any one elses spin on it, or at least see that all information ultimately is spun at you. Maybe I have become cynical, but my cynicism is well founded and a painful reminder of the modern corporate political world we all live in.
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