Posted on 19 April 2012

At AVC.com last week, there was a discussion around “Where do you get your news?” A lot of the discussion was how in the age of the internet (mostly Facebook and Twitter), people expect news to find them rather than for them to go seek it out.
That’s telling for people (like me!) who trade in the ability to get people to pay attention to the information we put out there. Radio is a kettle of fish somewhat separate from print, but we’re still competing for attention in a crowded atmosphere and can’t expect people to just seek us out.
But I wanted to touch on how I get my news. Since my value to listeners/audience is based on filtering through stories and getting out ahead of them, I can’t wait for the news to come to me– I have to find it, preferably where no one else is looking. Here’s a rough idea of how I parse news on a typical day.

• first I check Twitter to find out what everyone is talking about
• then I go to by dozen or so Twitter searches to find out what everyone is talking in different regions/topics I cover
• then I go to a few blogs that I read, mostly for my own pleasure
• then I open my bookmark folder that has about thirty community news site saved, to see what people are finding out from other sources
• at work, we trade our ideas on what the big stories of the day are, as well as the other stories we think are worth pursuing
• throughout the day, I come back to Twitter and one or two frequently updated sites for anything that develops that might not be coming into the press release email inbox or (believe it or not) over the fax machine. I’m also listening to at least three radio newscasts a day, and national TV news is on in our office
• a couple of times a week, I check Google Reader. I have RSS feeds collecting blogs written by people who are in the region who might be writing about stuff that hasn’t come up in any other media
• a couple of times a day I check the Pulse.me app on my phone to see what’s happening in national and international news (as well as tech and music news, for my own pleasure more than anything)
• on the weekend, I read as much as I can of things I’ve saved to Instapaper. This is usually long-form stuff from the Economist, Globe and Mail, Maclean’s, New York Times, and the Atlantic
• if city council is meeting, I have a read through their agenda the day before
• and I probably peruse through a stack of newspapers delivered to our office once or twice a week. Believe it or not, you can still find stories in papers that aren’t online (mostly in community event listings and ads, but they’re there)

It’s kind of a lot to parse, and I know I’m far from typical. If I didn’t work in current events, I know I wouldn’t be as across all this stuff. I’m not sure what I would and wouldn’t be using if I wasn’t doing this. Probably all of it, just not as often.

Filed under: journalism, radio