By Cheryl Mattox Berry
Gone are the days when you waited for delivery of the local newspaper or sat in front of the TV at an appointed hour to get the day’s top stories. With technology so readily available and a 24-hour news cycle, it’s easy to get news on demand. Do you? I’m not talking about gossip but real news with facts and figures.
For teens, what passes as news is usually the latest antics of reality TV characters. Their shenanigans are brought to you by bloggers and entertainment TV shows. While the information may be entertaining, it won’t help you understand the issues facing your neighborhood, city, country and the world. The 2012 presidential campaign – with both candidates playing fast and loose with the facts – is a prime example of why you should pay attention to the news.
It would behoove you to pick up a newspaper or news magazine, listen to an all-news radio station or watch the evening news a few times a week. You’ll get up-to-the-minute information from anchors and reporters who tell stories without injecting their opinion. Their goal is to inform and educate the public so that people can make up their own mind about an issue.
Some online news outlets do a good job of reporting the news. Others give you what amounts to a headline and a couple of tidbits. You need to supplement that with a traditional news source for background and perspective. More importantly, you need to realize when a writer is giving you his/her opinion rather than the facts.
Everybody has an opinion, but not every writer is a professional. Writers on some sites, for example, don’t bother to check their facts or get the other side of the story. They do readers a disservice by not following the basic principles of journalism.
Following the news has many benefits. Reading the newspaper and news magazines improves your vocabulary and writing. You’ll be able to contribute a global point of view in essays, term papers and classroom discussions. Knowing what is happening in the world will make you a better student overall and the well-rounded applicant that colleges look for among the thousands of applications they receive each year.