How We Get Our "Real News"

Link to January 11 New York Times article, "Study Finds That Real News Comes From the Newspapers". (print headline)

Excerpt: The study found 53 different sources of local news — general-interest newspapers like The Baltimore Sun, The Washington Post and their Web sites, several smaller papers in the region, publications devoted to a niche like local business, local television and radio stations, and new online news sites and blogs. Even the reporting done by traditional media was driven mostly by government statements rather than journalists’ own digging, the study found. [RG's emphasis.]

Real news? Reporting? I think it's called stenography. (More commentary here, here, and here.)


Link to January 11 Pew Center Project for Excellence in Journalism report, "How News Happens: A Study of the Ecosystem of One American City".

Excerpt: The study, which examined all the outlets that produced local news in Baltimore, Md., for one week, surveyed their output and then did a closer examination of six major narratives during the week, finds that much of the “news” people receive contains no original reporting. Fully eight out of ten stories studied simply repeated or repackaged previously published information.