2008 Woodie Awards
You are what you read
Nadine Anheier
Issue date: 2/13/06 Section: Forum
- Page 1 of 1
I like to read things other people read.
A 2004 posting on writenews.com showed that 80 percent of Americans who use the Internet read news. That sounds really good, doesn't it? This type of statistic seems to indicate people are going back to reading newspapers rather than watching the constantly-streaming television news networks. But what defines "news" for this sort of survey?
The top type of news people look for (60 percent) is weather. This makes sense. You gotta know what to wear. Next on the survey is national news at 56 percent, followed by world news and local news.
This all sounds pretty good, but according to one of my favorite Web pages, Yahoo's "Most Popular" news page, what people read isn't exactly what is most important.
Don't get me wrong, I love looking at that page just as much as anyone else. With stories like "'Throttling' Angers Netflix Heavy Renters" and "3-Foot-Tall Woman Has Healthy Son," it has its connection to my daily life and tabloid-like draws.
The amazing thing is that these are the stories that get the most hits and are e-mailed the most. Every day you can visit this page and see 10 of the Internet's most popular stories. Every day you can read something of interest, something light, and oftentimes something disgusting.
Are these stories the same ones that grace the front page of the newspaper or the homepage of Yahoo news? Definitely not. Sometimes the stories address more serious topics like race and general human cruelty, but they are very rarely what newspapers decide goes on the front page. On the same day as the three-foot woman and the Netflix stories, Yahoo's top story was about the American journalist Jill Carroll's threats to kill her, directly followed by a story that I (as well as many people) would consider pretty important and relevant to our lives: "Bush Reveals Rationale Behind Surveillance."
Does this mean Americans are reading the wrong news and are completely ignorant about what is actually going on the world? Not really.
Often I find myself rationalizing reasons for the "Most Popular" page: people just e-mail the funky stories the most, it is not that they do not read the real news first. This may be true; however, why aren't people e-mailing stories about spying on American citizens without warrants?
I guess the thing to remember is that people are reading, and they are reading news, whether it is serious or not. However, I still wonder whether Yahoo's "Most Popular" page says something about Americans' attitudes toward not only the news, but also their country and world in general.
Now, time to get back to that story about Starbucks dropping its new chocolate drink.
nanheier@unews.com
A 2004 posting on writenews.com showed that 80 percent of Americans who use the Internet read news. That sounds really good, doesn't it? This type of statistic seems to indicate people are going back to reading newspapers rather than watching the constantly-streaming television news networks. But what defines "news" for this sort of survey?
The top type of news people look for (60 percent) is weather. This makes sense. You gotta know what to wear. Next on the survey is national news at 56 percent, followed by world news and local news.
This all sounds pretty good, but according to one of my favorite Web pages, Yahoo's "Most Popular" news page, what people read isn't exactly what is most important.
Don't get me wrong, I love looking at that page just as much as anyone else. With stories like "'Throttling' Angers Netflix Heavy Renters" and "3-Foot-Tall Woman Has Healthy Son," it has its connection to my daily life and tabloid-like draws.
The amazing thing is that these are the stories that get the most hits and are e-mailed the most. Every day you can visit this page and see 10 of the Internet's most popular stories. Every day you can read something of interest, something light, and oftentimes something disgusting.
Are these stories the same ones that grace the front page of the newspaper or the homepage of Yahoo news? Definitely not. Sometimes the stories address more serious topics like race and general human cruelty, but they are very rarely what newspapers decide goes on the front page. On the same day as the three-foot woman and the Netflix stories, Yahoo's top story was about the American journalist Jill Carroll's threats to kill her, directly followed by a story that I (as well as many people) would consider pretty important and relevant to our lives: "Bush Reveals Rationale Behind Surveillance."
Does this mean Americans are reading the wrong news and are completely ignorant about what is actually going on the world? Not really.
Often I find myself rationalizing reasons for the "Most Popular" page: people just e-mail the funky stories the most, it is not that they do not read the real news first. This may be true; however, why aren't people e-mailing stories about spying on American citizens without warrants?
I guess the thing to remember is that people are reading, and they are reading news, whether it is serious or not. However, I still wonder whether Yahoo's "Most Popular" page says something about Americans' attitudes toward not only the news, but also their country and world in general.
Now, time to get back to that story about Starbucks dropping its new chocolate drink.
nanheier@unews.com
