News Today: The Beauty of “Information Overload”

Thanks to social media, smart phones, dig­i­tal devices, and the thou­sands of web­sites avail­able online, the news world is expe­ri­enc­ing what I believe to be its peak. Not only can any­one have access to the news at any time, but we as a col­lec­tive soci­ety, are all sources of the news. More often than not, pho­tos, videos, and some­times even the news itself can be attrib­uted to a bystander with a cell-phone—one of the bil­lions of “jour­nal­ists” around the world.

In “Twit­ter and the incred­i­ble shrink­ing news cycle,” Math­ew Ingram dis­cuss­es this phe­nom­e­non, not­ing that the first source of Whit­ney Hous­ton’s death announce­ment could be found on Twit­ter. In this way, I believe that the news world has changed for the bet­ter: pro­vid­ing unlim­it­ed sources of con­stant news, all right at your fingertips.

Although it can be occa­sion­al­ly dif­fi­cult to cut through the noise of news, espe­cial­ly online, I do not believe we are at the point of over­sat­u­ra­tion. Con­stant out­flow of infor­ma­tion has led more peo­ple to expe­ri­ence the news and gain reg­u­lar updates on cur­rent issues–something that could only be done once or twice a day pri­or to the dig­i­tal age. At this point, we are receiv­ing more than 174 news­pa­pers worth of infor­ma­tion every day, accord­ing to Richard Alleyne’s arti­cle in The Tele­graph, and yet our brains are equipped to han­dle the influx.

Per­son­al­ly, I get my infor­ma­tion from sites and sources I already know and trust–CNN and the New York Times. I receive news updates both imme­di­ate­ly to my phone as well as via Twit­ter accounts. One draw­back to the dig­i­tal age is ensur­ing the accu­ra­cy of a report. More often than not, I get my most imme­di­ate news from a friend on Face­book or a tweet, but often have to delve deep­er into my own research for a more reli­able and cred­i­ble source.

For jour­nal­ists today, the best way to stay cur­rent is to get involved. That means post­ing to Twit­ter accounts, check­ing out what peo­ple on Face­book are dis­cussing, and respond­ing to com­ments online. The news is every­where, and may even come from the per­son sit­ting next to you (or the annoy­ing girl on your Twit­ter feed).