My Digital Self
Sep 15th, 2017 by John Miller
The news I am most interested in is sports news on a national level. I would also say I have some level of interest of sports on the state level, but I don’t really have any intrigue with sports on the local level. I will check in on big national stories, such as the recent hurricanes, but that’s about the extent of my interest in national news of such variety.
I rarely look at the news from my hometown, The Janesville Gazette. Unless something unusual or intriguing happens in my hometown, I usually don’t pay attention to my local news. I know that some places around campus here at UW-Whitewater give out the Gazette, and the content is pretty easily accessible online, still, I rarely find myself looking at my local paper.
My most visited online news site is ESPN. It’s a convenient and well-crafted news for all of the news content I’m interested in. If I’m looking for a big national story to read about, I’ll simply just type key words into google and just click on the first few websites that come up.
When I consume content on ESPN, most of the time it is done with text, pictures, and short video clips. I prefer just to read the text, simply because that’s the most enjoyable way I feel like I can consume the content.
I don’t think I have ever interacted with a news article online by posting a comment. Really, if I’m that interested in a story that I want to discuss it, I’ll find a friend in real life to talk about the subject with. I have never emailed a reporter or submitted relevant content to a news site.
As someone who does not have a Facebook or Twitter, all my news is searched for by myself. I don’t read blogs, just because I don’t think I’ve ever really come across one without searching for it, and most of the time the articles on big news sites are simply better. Podcasts, however, are something that have peaked my interest in recent years. I use podcasts as an extension of the news I already consume myself with. So, lots of times I’ll just put on a sports podcast that deals with news and other content when I am driving or maybe walking to class. Most of the sports podcasts are linked to a sports news site online, so it’s all connected.
If I ever feel like a news source may be unreliable and inaccurate, I’ll try and do some research myself. But, usually the first step is to just check other news sites that deal with the same issue or topic, and see if there are any major differences. Preferably, I’ll check another news site that I feel has a different perspective than the one I am questioning. I can’t recall ever finding out a story I read was fake. Overall, my digital self is very centered around one type of news on one news site.