My Top 5 News Outlets: Farrell

News Outlets: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

By Olivia Farrell

Our access to news has never been easier. Thanks to our phones, computers, and watches we are able to absorb news at faster rates. However, what this means for the days of newspapers and even watching the news is something that has become far less attainable. According to Homewood Health, our attention spans are evolving to become shorter because of the influence of mobile devices and ready Internet access.

Due to this shorter attention span, a lot of the news that people like myself are starting to take in is a shorter, more condensed format that loses the more specific details. Here is my list of news outlets that I partake in as often as I can, although some of them are on accident.

1. Tiktok

Tiktok is, albeit, a rather looked down upon app. There are countless amounts of controversies surrounding it especially with the nature of its content and the creators as well. However, there have been recent turns with reporters and different news organizations moving there to start putting news out there. Short form has become insanely trending and they've started to capitalize on that. On top of all of this, creators have been integral in a movement to make news more accessible. This has caused the number of %22 of consumers getting their news from the app to go up by 11 percentage points in 2022. While this doesn't seem like a sizable number, you have to consider the amount of people that actually partake in Tiktok. The social media app has 750 million monthly users as of 2022, which makes 33% of consumers that get their news from Tiktok a whopping 247500000 people monthly. I don't mind admitting that I and plenty of my friends are part of that 33% and being apart of that demographic has allowed me access to a lot of news. However, this news might not necessarily be the most important thing in the world, but it's still the news that I consume the most (it's more of a guilty pleasure).

2. Snapchat

Speaking of guilty pleasures, news that is found on Snapchat is some of the lowest of the low. You have plenty of news articles that you are able to go through that are really solid, such as Now This, Fox News, CNN, etc. There are less than desirable sources as well, ones that are curated especially for those that are into raunchy news that is from the bottom of the barrel. The Daily Mail, a British paper, is one that comes to mind and it is notorious for tabloid news that is tone deaf, shallow, and all around stupid. I, of course, read this at least once a week when I'm standing in the mail line in Slane or in between homework. It's entertaining and makes you feel way better about yourself when you see Kim Kardashian losing it over her daughter not having the next Gucci shoes for the following school year. It's not important news, but it's news nonetheless that some people find enjoyment in.

3. Apple News

In all fairness, I haven't been super up-to-speed when it comes to my Apple News recommendations. However, I do believe that this option on your phone as a built-in app is insanely smart and helpful for those that can causally intake very important topics. It gives you assorted news stories from the topics you like, all written by the news sources you love. Of course, this could cause a really easy lack of diversified information if all you are reading is Fox or the New York Times, but it's better than no information at all. 

4. Reddit

Reddit is a lesser known website that is only frequented by those that are depraved, bored, or all of the above. Most of the time, I'm just bored. 

There are plenty of different "subreddits" or different, smaller forums that people are able to post and share their opinions on a plethora of subjects. If it exists, there is a very big chance that you will somehow find a subreddit dedicated to the topic or at least a one-off post about it. There have been a lot of controversies surrounding Reddit as the accessibility to posting different videos or images leaves a lot of room for those depraved people I was talking about to post some pretty heinous stuff. Most of the time, it isn't taken down as quickly as it would be on Youtube or Instagram, however the news stories that are there are full of information that might not be as easily found if you were to look at just any other news site. 

I can't say that I read from here as much as I used to when I was in high school, but if I really needed to do some digging on a niche topic, I would go there first to at least get an idea of where else I might start my search at. 

5. My Father

Now my father and I have some pretty differing political opinions on most things. Actually, I think we disagree on almost everything political. 

With that being said, having that disagreeing voice is a great way to get the other side of the story that you might not want to listen to normally, but have to because they are your guardian and you live under their roof when you're back home. 

We have a lot of discussions about different topics while I'm at home and almost all of them end with us still not agreeing with each other, but understanding where the other person is coming from. This, is 100 times more important than making someone believe the same things that you do, in my opinion, and is the reason why having your political opinions define what friends you make or who you talk to doesn't make sense.