On this blog I will share various personal work I create for my Journalism for the Web J347 course at the University of Wisconsin Whitewater. In addition to taking this course I spend much of my free time photographing sports for the Athletic department here on campus and various high-school and professional teams in the Madison Wisconsin area. – Dane Sheehan
Personal Website: https://danesheehan.wixsite.com/danetography
Most of the news which I consume tends to come from either visual or audio-based platforms such as television, radio, YouTube, publication websites and podcasts. I believe I tend to gravitate towards these mediums of consumption more than text because they grab my attention span and interest through using visuals to explain news. In this write-up I will provide an overview into my news consumption habits including what news I follow, the media platforms I use to do so and what specific events and topics I follow within the news cycle.
Between local, national and international news I tend to focus mostly on national headlines within the United States. I believe this is mostly because national headlines are what I expose myself to most through platforms like the AP news app on my phone or watching content from CBS News on YouTube. In addition to national news, I am definitely interested in local broadcast and print news, for me this includes TV stations like WISC-TV in Madison and publications like the Wisconsin State Journal. Most of the time the local news content I seek is geared towards sports, city development and weather, however when living at home with my family I am exposed to pretty much all local news categories as the broadcast is turned on each night. In regard to international news, most of the international stories I follow either relate to a countries’ relations with the United States or international feature stories included in national news broadcasts.
I wouldn’t really say that I have a favorite news site which I go to the most for information, however my favorite platform for indirectly viewing news is YouTube. This is mostly because a majority of major national and local-news networks upload their news coverage straight to YouTube in addition to their own websites, allowing me to choose which news outlet I prefer for different information and stories. When it comes to online print or local broadcast news, I tend to go directly to the outlets website to find the content I’m looking for, this includes the Wisconsin State Journal, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and the Cap Times.
Most of my reaction and thoughts about news stories I either discuss with my family members and close friends or I keep to myself. I have probably never used the comment section of an online news story or contacted someone who wrote it, unless it involved photos I took, or something related to sports that I was extremely interested in. I Usually go directly to a source for news, however occasionally I will click on a news link on Facebook or Twitter as long as it is from a trusted known source. Personally, most of the news which I follow through twitter is related to sports, this mostly because I follow lots of sports journalists and photographers on twitter which repost stories they wrote or found interesting. The only news sources I follow directly on twitter include Bloomberg QuickTake which posts short video content for most national and international news stories and local papers like the State Journal, Isthmus and Cap Times. However, for sports news I follow accounts like Sports Illustrated, ESPN college football and local ESPN and Fox sports radio stations.
In recent times I have also started to listen to the news in podcast format, from outlets like NPR and The New York Times. These are usually structured daily news summary or feature shows that they put out including, “Up First” and “The Daily” which I usually listen to in the morning while exercising. When it comes to making sure if a source is accurate or not, I usually tend to stay with mainstream news sources like CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, which gives me assurance that their reporter’s and programing will always aim to share accurate information and perspectives. The same can also be said for the local news sources I follow, which tend to be the most well-known broadcast stations on the CBS, NBC and ABC networks.
These details and habits related to my news media consumption highlight the number sources and media platforms I use to find out information, in video, print, radio and podcast form. Overall, I believe this highlights that the variety mediums I use to consume news, shows the profound impact the internet has had on the accessibility and availability of news content.
