• Twitter
  • Facebook
News-Sentinel.com Your Town. Your Voice.
Opening Arguments

The good news is there still is some

I think CBS News President David Rhodes was just denying the obvious when he told a conference he was attending that CBS isn't biased, that CBS is indeed a "beacon of unbiased news." He says he consideres it a great day when CBS "takes incoming from both sides" about they handled a story, which is the kind of nonsense we've always spouted in the media to show how "fair" we are. Hey, everybody hates us, so we must be balanced. Or maybe we're just worthy of being hated.

I do think he was right about one thing, though:

Rhodes said a new report by the University of Texas School of Journalism revealing that young adults, so called 'millenials,' are less likely to consume news at all, doesn't accurately reflect reality.

"In a lot of these things it is how the question is framed," he said. "If you ask people, they probably have a visceral reaction to one type of media, and that's what is being pulled out. But if you ask them whether they 'feel informed,' or 'consider themselves informed,' I think they would say that they are."

I don't want to overstate my case here. I think the millenials do pay less attention to news -- the upcoming generation has always been that way. Ignoring the world around you is one of the defining characteristics of the young; it's always been that way and probably always will be. I barely paid attention to the news until I was in my early 20s, back from the Army and taking my second run through college on the GI Bill.

But the notion that the millenials consume less news than previous youngest generations is being overstated, I think. And the reason is simple. How news is consumed is constantly evolving these days. Young people don't read newspapers or magazines that much or even watch TV news. But they're always on the Internet, always on their smartphones. Just because they get their information from "The Daily Show" or a link on Facebook doesn't mean they're uninformed. And while the ways of getting news have changed, the people making judgments about its consumption tend to be stuck on the old ways. If people aren't getting the news the way they did, then they aren't getting news, period.

Comments

RAG
Thu, 09/13/2012 - 3:23pm

Columbia Broadcasting Sophist News President David Rhodes reminds me of the friendly neighborhood used car salesman.

littlejohn
Wed, 09/19/2012 - 1:43pm

At least Fox News is Fair and Balanced. We know it's true because they keep telling us.

tim zank
Wed, 09/19/2012 - 2:50pm

You ought to watch it sometime throughout the day (not the prime time opinion line-up) and decide for yourself instead of relying on Media Matters critique's of what they say Fox News said.  Watch Shep Smith sometime at 3:00, he's a swingin gay lib but he delivers a straight news show I think you would actually appreciate...

Quantcast