History in the Making

Where do you go for your news? A recent article in the New York Times outlines the fact that, even though the availability of online news sources continues to increase, most people still only use a small number of these sites. According to the article, 35 percent of those who read their news online have a favorite site, and 21 percent use a “single Internet news source.” In addition, 57 percent of those people use two to five online news sources in their news reading routines. The article states that “just 7 percent of people said they would be willing to pay for access to any news site. And even among the people who are most loyal to a single site, only 19 percent said they would pay, rather than seek free news somewhere else.” This, however, does not upset news companies all that much because they believe that even if only 5 to 10 percent of their online readers paid it would still be profitable for them. One last statistic that the article presents is that, of the thousands of online news outlets, 199 of them get 80 percent of “the United States traffic.”

Though there are many issues that could be brought up based on this article, I would like to focus on the last statistic mentioned above. The fact that so many news outlets are available, and that so few (I know, 199 is a lot, but compared to the thousands that are available and the number of people that likely access them, it loses its impact a little) are regularly accessed raises an intriguing idea. These 199 sites that are accessed by 80 percent of online news readers are creating history. The promoters and assemblers (Molotch and Lester pg. 122) of these news stories are creating the events that will determine what we perceive to be “public time.”

I focus on this idea because it is fascinating to me that there is so much power in journalism and media production. It is odd to think of the fact that, if these 199 newspapers does not report an event, it is highly unlikely that anywhere near the majority of people will ever know that it occurred. Journalists, in a sense, create history. Hopefully, the most important events get reported, and that is, I think, the objective of news companies. However, it is interesting to consider the influence they have, not only over what is actually reported, but also over the messages we receive about the events being reported. The individuals that assemble news, even though most strive for objectivity, still portray a sense of bias in the messages they give. Keep that in mind while you read and watch. How does it influence you?