How do you consume your news?

I did an informational interview earlier this week.  After the usual questions about the agency, our clients, what a typical day is like, he asked me, as a public relations practitioner, how do I consume the news? With so many ways to get news today, he wondered how I could possibly take it all in.

What a great question. And he’s not wrong.  It can be overwhelming the amount of news that comes at us every day.

So how do I consume the news?  Very carefully.

But seriously, it is our responsibility as consumers of news to take responsibility for, as mentioned in this previous post and this previous post. I used this example – if you are going to buy a new computer, you do your research, read product reviews, price compare, ask friends for recommendations and then armed with the information, you purchase the computer that works best for your needs.

So why don’t we apply the same diligence to news?  In a lot of ways, news is a product. We have multiple options to choose from, so why wouldn’t we watch/read/scroll through a variety of sources to inform our decisions?  Wouldn’t we be a more informed news consumer if we accessed the product in different ways.

That can include the daily paper, local talk radio and television news outlets, national/international newspapers and magazines, and of course, social.

Let’s be smart consumers.