I’ve said for years that newspapers and magazines are obsolete media. By the time it’s in a paper form, I either already know about it or don’t care about it. I’m not kidding, the combination of caring about news and then getting it from a newspaper the next day seems like a logical disconnect Evel Knievel couldn’t jump over on a rocket bike. I find the evening television news to be only slightly less untimely.
But that doesn’t mean I’m ready to get my news from social media. The screen capture above, just taken from my Facebook page, explains why, perfectly.
The fact that some football player’s new tattoo is in a list (of 2 items) with the increasing tension in the Middle East tells me that what I thought was only the funniest movie ever made may also have been an accurate prediction of things to come.
If you want to know where I do get my news, there are three primary sources:
1. Rancho DeNada Times, the real time news aggregation page I created years ago. I can quickly scan the headlines and see if there is anything I want to know about.
2. My RSS feeds, via Feedly. I subscribe to Google News, The Atlantic, and NPR.
3. NPR audio, via XM radio if I’m driving or via my Amazon Echo if I’m at home.
If there’s something major happening, I’ll tune into CNN via the internet or on my TV, but that’s a rare occasion.
American culture is celebrity-obsessed, serially focused on the media created drama-of-the week, and attention deficient. As such, it’s important to decide where you get your news from. Otherwise, your experience may start to look like this:
Newsome.Org 