Young Readers Redefine 'News' -- But Is it Really News?

By: Maegan Carberry Entertainment and conversation (in person or via social media) may be entry points to news, but they do not replace fact-driven, straightforward reporting. That was the overwhelming reader response to last week?s column that deconstructed the findings of a recent Pew study that indicated young readers are not actually seeking out news online as frequently as some have argued.

The alternatives, such as The Colbert Report, YouTube videos, Saturday Night Live sketches, or Facebook wall posts, would not be considered news by a person of any age, argued one news designer from Conneticut.

?If the point is to show how younger people so totally do consume news, then we can go to whatever lengths necessary to define ?news? to suit that thesis,? he wrote to me last week. ?Information and ideas are not the same as news. They can derive from news and vice versa. But they are not the same and to define them as such, to me, trivializes the issue.?

The journalism-school side of my brain was inclined to agree with him because certainly one can defiine as , say, an A1 story about Iraq from the New York Times or a report on the recession from the Wall Street Journal. But I don?t believe it?s that simple anymore, or that new media enthusiasts are stretching the definition of news to show that the millennial generation is engaged, especially when amateurs are more frequently leading the traditional news cycle, as we saw this past weekend with blogosphere and Sarah Palin.

Case in point: On Friday I slept until noon because I was exhausted from spending the week at the Democratic National Convention. Beginning around 9am, my Twitter feed started blowing up with text messages about Sarah Palin being selected as John McCain?s running mate. I subscribe to my pal and conservative blogger Liz Hackney?s tweets because I like to get ?news? or ?updates? or ?info? or whatever we consider that message from her to be, and she is the one who broke this important bit of news to me. Does this not count? Or is it just second-hand conversation, as it would be over dinner? And is this really an important distinction? I got the news regardless.

The problem is, obviously, if Twitter is my only news source. I later went back and researched Sarah Palin extensively on my own, using a variety of media outlets, including The New York Times, Fox News online, Huffington Post?s comments sections, John McCain?s web site and Wikipedia. Several of those wouldn?t show up in the Pew study; does this mean I?m not engaged or that I just have more robust choices?

To argue that social media is strictly entertainment or conversation is to negate the role of editorial cartoons, photo essays, columnists and creative feature stories in traditional reporting. It?s born of the same thread: the effort to connect with a consumer who might not respond to linear news.

Here?s a sampling of some more of your interesting comments on the subject. Send more views to me at: maegan.carberry@gmail.com. OR with the launch today of E&P's first blogs, you can leave Comments directly at:

http://www.eandppub.com/2008/09/do-20-something.html
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An interesting article - and certainly a topic that the newspaper industry must tackle sooner rather than later. From an 'outside the editorial department' viewpoint - I think a study on the accuracy of first-past-the-post style reporting would be interesting, especially as the online news world places huge importance on displaying a story the second it breaks. Most times I have found that the initial story doesn't reflect the 'true' story nearly as much as it should - and I think this is a weakness in online reporting & blogs that newspapers should be pointing out and using as fodder to show potential young readers that the quickest isn't always the best.

I also tend to think that the poor reliability of these initial facts may also be driving people away from the time spent on newspaper sites as they wait for the entire story to unfold. I know I have stopped reading the first generation of any 'breaking news' because in many instances the facts just aren't facts.?

-- Pablo G.

Thanks for the thought-provoking post.

You asked: "Does a 45-year-old male consider a YouTube parody of McCain and Obama's stances on the conflict in Georgia to be news? Probably not. But high-school students increasingly engage with and learn about world events from this type of media."

Well certainly an informed 45-year-old male, or a 12-year-old male or a 24-year-old female doesn't consider a McCain/Obama parody to be news. They'd consider it entertainment. It may be a gateway to becoming interested in real, actual news, but news it is not. Is Will Ferrell doing a George Bush impression on youtube "news consumption"? Does reading a friend's e-mail or Facebook note -- perhaps thoughts recycled from the recycled thoughts of a blogger -- count as consuming news? It's certainly something. But it's not news....

Another thing to consider. Information and ideas are not the same as news. They can derive from news and vice versa. But they are not the same and to define them as such, to me, trivializes the issue. All this is not to say that people -- younger and older -- are getting and will get their news in non-traditional ways. But bending the rules on what "news" is, is not the direction to go in solving the problem of lagging news consumption.?

- David H.

?Much more work needs to be done to identify the hard data -- not only about millennials, but all citizens -- regarding how regularly we read serious sources of news. Accent on the serious. Doesn't matter if it's print or online. What matters is content. Major newspapers are still in the content department. But how many of us read a serious newspaper every day? A lot of people tell pollsters they do -- but what section? Sports? Arts? Lifestyle? Comics? Those are all enjoyable -- but how many actually read and reflect on the content of the A-section and the op-ed page??

- Jeffrey A.

The caveat of "stumbling across" an important article usually means the outcome is not followed to a resolution. A voting public whose desire is to be entertained in a time of war will master the demise of honest journalism.?

-Jehanne