My Digital Self
Often when I go seeking news stories, I focus most of my attention on stories from my hometown, La Crosse. My reasoning for doing so is because I feel that monitoring what is currently happening in my town is the best way for me to be knowledgeable about the community. The local stories are the most useful to me, so it benefits me the most to be informed about local news before I educate myself on national affairs.
Typically, I get my news from broadcasting stations. When I can, I will sit down and watch WXOW’s Live at 5 broadcast report. But of course, I cannot always sit down and watch the news. So, in order to stay well informed, I follow WXOW, WKBT, and the La Crosse Tribune on social media, namely Facebook and Instagram. By doing so I see all the top headline stories while I scroll through my feeds.
Unlike most, I have not yet jumped on the bandwagon for joining Twitter, blogs, or podcasts I have tried to enjoy Twitter, as well as a variety of blogs and podcasts but I do not prefer them over broadcast. So, I tend to steer away from Twitter accounts, blogs, and podcasts and steer myself towards Facebook and Instagram.
And while I am scrolling through Facebook or Instagram, I often come across stories that have a large comment section. And while I have never commented on a news story, I do enjoy reading the comments and debates that people are having because it shows me how others in the area are reacting.
And other times, when I see an interesting headline, I will head over to the sources website and read the full story. Often times if the story leaves me with more questions than answers I will head over to Google to do more research. This includes the WXOW website, the WKBT website, or the La Crosse Tribune website, as those are the main newsrooms of the La Crosse area.
Out of these three big new sources of La Crosse, my favorite would be WXOW because on their homepage is all their top stories of the week and on the right-hand side of the screen, they have a forecast report. Plus, all their information about sports, COVID-19, and politics are sorted out onto different pages, making it easy to find the exact news I am looking for.
Now I, like many others, prefer to watch the news. I enjoy seeing the videos that come along with the narration – it humanizes the story and gives more emotion than plain text is able to do. For that reason, I prefer to watch my news rather than read it or listen to audio reporting.
And in the age of fast, quick news reporting, the threat of fake news is always in the back of my mind. The way that I ensure all my news is factual, I only read new stories from sources that I know are credible. To me, that means all information is direct, clear, and verified. And when I do come across sources that I am unfamiliar with, I often put them through fact-checking websites such as factcheck.org or snopes.com. By doing so I know that all of the information I am reading is real and authentic.
