As my D16 is home this summer before she heads to freshman year at college, I’m trying to encourage her to take on some “adult” habits. I was thinking back to the habit I had at her age of reading one or two of the daily local city newspapers. But, even I don’t read a local paper-paper anymore.
Still, I’d like to suggest she try out consuming the daily news this summer. But I no longer know how college students get their local, state, national, and international news these days. I assume it’s all completely online.
Anyone know how their college kids are staying informed of the daily news? Or, is the news just what’s going viral each day? Any ideas?
I’d encourage college students who really want to be informed to have a non-US newsource as their main one. BBC of course being the most popular.
If your D can read in another language, reading a paper from a non-English speaking country is also valuable. I used to read a Latin American newspaper but for the life of me I can’t remember the name of it.
So the vehicle is Twitter and FB read on the smartphone, and the student is following digital content feeds (am I butchering the vocab?) from traditional legacy journalism sources?
Any students using Mic.? Or Buzzfeed?
@romanigypsyeyes I suggested to D16 that she listen to and read from the app News in Slow Spanish and dig into one article a week. She is a beginner in Spanish but plans to take at least 4 semeaters of the language in college. So I thought she could combine her Spainsh learning with some news consumption. Kill two birds with one stone.
I rely on NPR/public radio every morning, night, and weekend, but my D16 tunes it out and always wants me to turn it off. I had thought the radio programs would give her the easiest way for her to get that daily dose of news. Not her fave.
In grad school I subscribed to the WSJ and in undergrad to the CSM, national papers, in order to keep up as I moved around the country. She has no interest. It doesn’t help she’s not a fan of reading (has an LD). But, I’m going to walk her through a printed-paper Sunday NYT sometime this summer just so she understands how papers are (were) organized. How quaint and old-timey, hmm.
My daughters start their day with The Skimm. Excellent news summary of the important stories of the day but told in a geared to millenials ( mostly females ) way. All of my daughters friends read it. It also links to everything from CNN to The Financial Times. .
@dyiu13 Your daughter may love it’s breezy style. Today’s topics included Brexit with a comprehensive guide to the issue.
And here they are on what happened in congress:
“WHAT TO SAY TO YOUR CO-WORKER WHO HAS A STANDING DESK…
You could also sit. Just ask House Democrats. Yesterday, dozens of Dems staged a sit-in on the House floor over gun control. Reminder: Earlier this month, a gunman killed 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando, FL. The shooter was on the FBI’s radar for years, but wasn’t on any terror watch lists at the time of the shooting. Cue many lawmakers deciding it’s time to change US gun laws. One problem: Congress can’t agree on anything. Earlier this week, the Senate failed to pass four gun control measures. So a group of House Dems took a seat, and tried to force votes on two bills — one that would ban people on the terrorism watch list from buying guns, and one that would tighten background checks. Last night, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) came in to vote on an unrelated issue. A standoff went down on the House floor, with Dems chanting and holding up signs. Ryan adjourned the House early today and sent everyone on vacay earlier than planned. But some Dems said ‘it wasn’t over, it still isn’t over,’ and remained on the floor. All-nighter, pulled. They’re now pushing for 'Murica to get gun reform as a belated birthday present when everyone comes back from break on July”
@dyiu13 I tend to not have a long attention span for NPR but I do like their podcast clips. The way they talk just kind of puts me to sleep when I’m driving but the podcasts are only a few minutes long and I can pick and choose which ones I want to listen to.
(Also remember that college students on CC are not the average college students! I’m a news junkie but I fully recognize that most of my undergrad students have no idea what’s going on in the world unless it’s been trending on twitter.)
Yahoo news. It’s a dumb news site, and ridiculously left-biased, but somehow it’s just become a habit. If it’s something important I usually scan some other news sites for some articles.
I have the NY Times app on my device, and it’s great. The contrast with some other news apps on said device is striking - Politico takes the better part of a minute to update content on a good day, with all manner of display bugs and/or poor text alignment on a less-good day. The NYT subscription fee is one we’re happy to pay (it includes online access to the NYT as well as the app, though not the print edition), because the sheer volume of quality digital content they produce on a daily basis is astounding. The data journalism created by their The Upshot section, and sites like FiveThirtyEight, could appeal to someone looking for a change of pace from journalism as it’s existed for the better part of half a century.
My Facebook feed is pretty tightly curated - I’ve only liked about a dozen pages, including the NYT, Washington Post, Reuters, BBC, and The Atlantic as mainstream sources. I also follow FiveThirtyEight, and a few other sources tailored to my personal interests (Brookings Institution, CityLab, C-Span, etc.). I now read about 90% of the commentary/analysis/research I come across via my Facebook feed, but breaking news generally comes through the outlets’ own apps/websites.
If your D has a LD, I some apps and many of these websites allow you to customize the reading experience by adjusting text size, spacing (at least, I think so), and more.
My kids are not huge social media users. They get their news from NPR, NYT online, one used to religiously watch Stewart’s Daily Show and Colbert Report (doesn’t care for the replacements). Follow various blogs.
I have followed The Skimm for years myself. I find it a little too cutesy but I’m am older than the targeted demographic.
One thing this political season has done is get both my kids to follow the news much more. The college-aged one gets a lot from Google News (I think) and FiveThirtyEight. He deleted his FB account before college so that it wouldn’t be a distraction, so I know he doesn’t get it from there. The younger kid gets his from The Skimm and FB.
I am an incoming college freshman and I check Google News several times throughout the day and read any articles that catch my attention. I also have the Washington Post app on my phone and I check it frequently.
There can be a core issue when just relying on some tertiary site’s sound bites. They’re sometimes pre-chewed for you. If I relied on FB, I’d know more about some actor or what happened in some corner of the country.