If Berkeley doctoral candidate Alex Mori was trying to find a quiet place for breakfast, his choice of Henry’s pub inside the Hotel Durant might not have been the best option.
On a television screen high above the bar, pictures of a recent attack in Iraq filled the screen. Moments later a talking head spouted statistics. The final frenetic moments of a World Cup soccer game dazzled the screen. Patrons scanned and folded fresh issues of several newspapers, often tossing them casually on a table or chair. A few yards outside the bar, in the lobby, a computer screen beckoned anyone who would purchase a $4 access card.
Fazed? Not Mori. Like so many Americans today, Mori has come to expect a bombardment from numerous news media.
“I go to the BBC [British Broadcasting Corporation] online,” said Mori. “I like to get stories from different perspectives. For North American news I go to my local paper. Some of the American papers editorialize a lot,” Mori said. “You get what the reporters think are fact. They just need to tell it like it is.”
But “telling it like it is” has become increasingly difficult as today’s news consumers demand both quicker and more accurate in-depth coverage of complex news, many pointed out.
Media bombards us from the moment we wake up in the morning to the moment we close our eyes at night. Access to information is increasing with each new emerging technology, including podcasts and phone-based news services like ESPN Mobile.
This much is clear in the emerging industry, according to interviews conducted on and around the Berkeley campus. The Internet is the first place people go after they first hear a bit of news, but then they validate and expand that knowledge through multiple sources. Another new facet to the trend, people said, is that blogs have added a whole new dimension to the dissemination and consumption of news: an interactive component.
“For the first time in human history,” Mori said, “we can voice our opinions. It is scary — but beneficial. You can’t suppress news now. There are multiple sources of news.”
Others agreed.
“I compare the print [media] to TV,” said Eva Martin, a foreign exchange student from Spain. “If the news is shocking, I do a search on the Internet. My search for the truth in the news involves this systematic comparison-search routine.”
One of the advantages of multiple sourcing the news is that it can identify media bias.
“The American outlets are biased and liberal at times,” said Mike Johns, a criminal justice graduate from UC-Berkeley. “I go outside the national coverage to the BBC. They have a broader coverage of international topics.”
The temptation to sensationalize is hard for many reporters to resist, and draws readers like a fight draws a crowd.
“There tends to be sensationalism with violence,” said Don Bott, high school newspaper advisor for The Stagg Line in Stockton, Calif. “They [reporters] are pretty good at seeming objective, but the beats lead to crime and violence.”
The daunting task before the media is complicated by the growing mix of media and perspectives that are crawling out of the woodwork of the Web, and poses a challenge for reporters to accurately present the news of the world.
John Raess, Bureau Chief for the Northern California office of Associated Press, speaks of the shield the AP stands on, and their mission to “always be right, always be first.”
While the busy students of Berkeley search the Internet for “the news,” a homeless man sits on a Berkeley street corner, head buried in the campus newspaper.
Kathy Arrandale, Journalism Advisor, The Medieval Times, Rialto High School, Rialto, CA. American Society of Newspaper Editors High School Newspaper Institute, Berkeley 2006