In this day and age, reading the news has never before been so effortless. Available in a wide array of mediums both material and virtual, the news now offers access to a huge cloud of topics ranging from op-eds to global politics. Despite this increased accessibility, the readership reflects a different story. A 2014 joint study conducted by Carnegie Mellon University, Stanford, and Microsoft Research found that only 14 percent of a sample of 1.2 million online readers could be considered active readers of the news. This percentage is particularly surprising, especially when placed in the context of today’s rising generation; a solid 61 percent of Millennials rely heaviest on Facebook alone for news delivery. In light of this rise in social media and improved interface connectivity, some have sought to seek out the reason behind low readership. A New Yorker article titled, “Doesn’t Anyone Read the News?” responded to the results of the survey by concluding that the low percentage implied that keeping up with the news is a hobby. The article’s startling conclusion evokes a fundamental question worth pondering over: why do we even read the news?
Stephen J. Dubner, the host of the popular economic podcast station, Freakonomics, extensively discussed this question back in August 2015, and interviewed Jill Abramson, the former executive editor of The New York Times. During her interview, Abramson agrees with the notion that one of the motivators of following the news was to “appear informed even if they’re not very informed” and in addition, to “confirm people’s prejudices.” Her former response points to a socially utilitarian value in remaining informed while the latter highlights a bias that has developed in the production and consumption of news over time. In other words, consumers discriminate between news sources and which ones they trust more. Abramson aptly describes this problem when she says, “People are getting so much of their news and information from places that they agree with, that I’m not sure… that many consumers get exposed to a full, rich palette of different takes on different issues that would really help them.”
The results that the Pew Research Center obtained appear to support Abramson’s claim in the societal value of staying updated with the times. According to the center’s data, 72 percent remain informed because they enjoy discussing the news with others. On the other hand, if Abramson is right in her thoughts that people read the news to subconsciously “confirm their prejudices,” then people are failing to effectively stay informed despite the civic obligations that moved 69 percent of participants to read the news.
Upon closer examination, Abramson’s fears do not seem so far removed. We live in the age of filter bubbles, algorithms that websites employ in order to deliver information that appeals to the taste of the user (hence, entrapping readers in their own ideological “bubbles”), and news stations that have relied on a model that emphasizes entertainment value in order to draw viewers to their channels. Despite some of our own initiative, we may not be as well-versed in the news as we thought we were due to our own habits and interests.
Yet, the ultimate filtration comes from those that remain disinterested with the news. There is real value in “news knowledge” that can evolve into an empowerment to take real, productive action. With unprecedented access to the news, it becomes imperative that we change the way we engage and process the news so that it becomes more than simply a hobby or a lofty, stagnant answer to civic responsibility.
