Discussion for article #236991
Really? I kind of doubt this as for Millennials, last time I checked, Facebook ceased being their social media platform of choice replaced by Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat. FB is for âoldâ people.
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Instagram is for fun
Twitter is for fun/venting
FB is for fun/venting/rants and discussions
All of the above at the same time.
Local TV? What does that mean? Is it supposed to exclude national broadcasts and cable news? Donât see how it can, since there is only two or three percent left to attribute to anything besides Facebook or âlocal TVâ.
Why would an uninformed Facebook user get their new from other uninformed Facebook users? Pigs in a sty are going to eat the same slop I supposeâŚ
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That was my impression as well.
The ideas of
refereed source
editor
informed journalism
journalism as a profession
public good
will, I suppose, atrophy for these Millennials, especially since all of them came of age after Reagan and the Great Communicatorâs shifting of the Social Contract.
All is not really lost. The only thing people have to do is take charge of their own society, using the structures of an excellent political system. Western Europe, overrun by the aftermath of WWII, did far far more with far far less.
The obstacle is simple:
The Right has adroitly used the facets of American culture so as to direct its people to self-enslave:
The South
The non-South
The Old
The not-old
The white
The non-white
The perceptive observer will note that each of these types of folk are conned to practically beg the 0.001% to continue.
If that were not the case, this country (with its AWESOME advantages) would not be in the shape itâs in.
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That would be a fairly passive embrace.
But the way we use Facebook is changing: gradually, itâs becoming a far more passive hub for our online social interactions.
A new comprehensive survey shows that out of the eight biggest social networks, Facebook was the only one to see a decline in the rate of people actively using the site per month over 2014 â a pattern that was consistent in regions across the world â while others like Pinterest and Tumblr saw large jumps in activity.
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I canât imagine using either as a source for political news. I can say that this baby boomer rarely tunes into TV news, and almost never local TV news.
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They arenât getting the information from other users per se, but from news articles shared by other users.
[quote=âemilianoelmexicano, post:7, topic:22102â]
The ideas of
refereed source
editor
informed journalism
journalism as a profession
public good
will, I suppose, atrophy for these Millennials, especially since all of them came of age after Reagan and the Great Communicatorâs shifting of the Social Contract.[/quote]
That criticism would seem to assert that those attributes can be found in the TV news sources that Millennials are avoiding, but not in the internet news articles they are sharing. Given the state of our current network news sources Iâm not sure that assertion has any merit.
Surely they gave more than those two options? Iâd say I still fetch most of my news (on this site, e.g. â looking for âwhat is going onâ â or on radio) but insofar as it gets pushed to me, itâs usually in that it bubbles up on Twitter or other media I encounter (âwhat is everybody referring to??â), which drives me to more traditional sources. Iâm no millenial, but I bet that pretty well mirrors what goes on across all ages â my retiree mother hears about stories from her pals, for example, maybe by phone or email instead of Twitter or Facebook, but the result is much the sameâŚ
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Nope, plenty of us use at least two out of facebook, twitter, tumblr, and instagram.
@acm The survey does offer more options, but these were by far the most cited sources for these two demographics. You can check out the full report here: http://www.journalism.org/2015/06/01/millennials-political-news/
(Side note: as a âMillennialâ, I do in fact get news from Facebook but rely on it more as a source for breaking news since people tend to post those stories to their feeds right away. Twitter and news sites are my other stand-bys. And the TVs in the TPM office are always tuned to all the major cable news channels so thereâs no escaping those either 
)
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Iâm in the same boat. I check regular news a lot, but facebook is where I tend to hear breaking major stories most often.
Of course, given the state of the debauched MSM, I, too, am positive it is a flawed product, particularly when juxtaposed against the best journalism I have been exposed to, in my life.
Journalism which featured refereed source, competent editors, informed journalism (see Ernie Pyle of WWII), journalism as a PROFESSION (instead of being a pimped-out, hair-dressed fool-on-the-air) and the the idea of the Public Good (which has probably left us).
So I was not speaking of comparing the current depraved MSM against the blogging, editor-less, journalism-cowboy item of âwhatâs on the webâ or âfacebookâ.
Anyone can have a blog. No editor, no source check, no accountability. The fact that the MSM relinquished objectivity for profits does not automatically legitimate getting oneâs ânewsâ from a blogger/facebook/twitter source, as opposed to an Edward R. Murrow or Walter Cronkite, both whom had to learn to apply the profession of journalism, dig for facts and report to editors before they were even allowed NEAR a microphoneâŚ
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The focus on comparing Facebook with âLocal Newsâ as a source is a bit odd from a number of perspectives, but chiefly in that comments/reports on this study seem to be referring to national political news (e.g., all the news sources in other parts of the survey are national sources), which local TV news only covers very lightly (unless it is a really big story and/or has some âlocalâ connection), and usually do not go much beyond the headline, relying on segments from their network affiliate/parent to cover a handful of major stories of the day. Local TV news will generally focus their political reporting resources (to the extent they have any these days) on local/state issues (and not always do it well).
[quote=âemilianoelmexicano, post:15, topic:22102â]
So I was not speaking of comparing the current depraved MSM against the blogging, editor-less, journalism-cowboy item of âwhatâs on the webâ or âfacebookâ.[/quote]
Except that is what the article is about, getting ones news from online sources or from the debauched mainstream media.
[quote]Anyone can have a blog. No editor, no source check, no accountability. The fact that the MSM relinquished objectivity for profits does not automatically legitimate getting oneâs ânewsâ from a blogger/facebook/twitter source, as opposed to an Edward R. Murrow or Walter Cronkite, both whom had to learn to apply the profession of journalism, dig for facts and report to editors before they were even allowed NEAR a microphoneâŚ
[/quote]It doesnât automatically legitimate online resources no, but neither does being online automatically de-legitimate online news resources. If the choice is between articles from TPM, Mother Jones, ThinkProgress, etc. shared by their friends on Facebook or FOX, which are they better off going with? Because again it isnât a choice between online news and Walter Cronkite, it is a choice between online news and Bill OâReilly and the like. Either way it certainly isnât millennialsâ fault that the MSM has degrade so much, that is entirely on the generations that preceded them who sat by and allowed it to happen.
The article WAS on (current) television news sources favoured by Boomers versus cyber-sources preferred by Millennials
I chose to focus on the atrohpy in news reporting in general.
There was nothing in my first observartions which singled out either conventional MSM or cyber-sources. Those who have previous posts of mine know that I am quite harsh in my criticism on the non-objectivity of the MSM. However, one cannot simply say âI criticizeâ. This is why I referred to the pathways of journalism practiced in the past by conventional MSM outlets. Dan Rather has observed that when the Networks decided to focus on the profit motive in news services, things changed. In my first post and my riposte to you, I mentioned some of the pitfalls facing cyber-sources.
To me, the issue is not âMillennial sourcesâ versus âBoomer sourcesâ. The issue is this:
News can be obained, but in the times we live in I believe that accurate news will probably shift upwards such that, for well-off Boomers comfortable with televised sources, they may watch some outstanding cable presentations, all the while the sources which people would call âpublicâ can wither and get weaker, as professional and accurate journalism becomes more of a specialty. After all, âViceâ is great. But more people may watch the tripe on the public networks or (worse yet) FOX.
The same things will apply to the cyber-world. The outlets like TPM, Mother Jones, ThinkProgress and the like will be looked at by better-off or better-educated Millennials, while sites which feature junk will be consumed by the âmassesâ.
JUXTAPOSE THAT with the past (the point I made about COMPARING THE PAST), in which newpapers and electronic media AVAILABLE AND BROADCAST TO THE GENERAL PUBLIC was of a much higher quality. Even Ed Bradley, who onlt gave the CBS Evening News on the weekend, was an outstanding journalist.
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My three children (17-26) do not have or discontinued their Facebook accounts. The youngest never bothered, the oldest for professional (job) reasons. The middle one (a girl) just doesnât care. They do use Instagram. I donât know if this anecdote is a trend but it may not be good for Facebook.
Those are good points and it seems I was a bit hasty with my criticism. I seem to have read a bit to much into your first comment, taking it as more directed at criticizing millenials for turning to ânew mediaâ for their news as opposed to criticizing the media for abandoning its journalistic responsibilities. It seems that the latter was your intention and it is a criticism with which I wholeheartedly agree.