The New News (Week 1)

The news has progressed quite extensively from its humble Pony Express beginnings. Today, the news is available in a wide variety of formats, and all have their different uses and advantages. Is any one form better than the others? Not entirely. While some types may be sufficient alone, the existence of the other types proves that not any one type of news can do everything.

The major types are:

Newspapers

The Straits Times

Newspapers, in terms of raw data, are the most concise and substantial form of news. A single edition has all the info one needs to know with regards to international news, home news, sports and such for the day. Unfortunately, because of this same reason, it is also probably the most unjustly forsaken type of news. Most people do not realise this, but reading the newspaper requires some technique involving picking out relevant information. It is quite pointless (and tiring) to read an entire edition cover to cover, and attempting such is the reason why most people do not even bother with newspapers. Newspapers, regardless, are still too crucial to do away with, due to its tremendous advertising potential.

Televised News

Fox News

Channel NewsAsia

Televised news programmes are able to capitalise on their ability to visually and audibly engage their audience to bring across the news in a more vivid and impacting way than the newspaper can. The format, along with the scrolling news captions and latest updates, enables people to take in more information at a time than with newspapers - useful for people on the move. Televised news is also better than the newspaper due to the by-the-minute updates. Newspapers only publish anything that makes it by press time; anything else has to wait until tomorrow.

The only problem is that viewers are subject to the programme's format and capacity: if you want to hear about tennis updates, you have to sit through all the more important stuff before they reach that part. Also, being visually appealing may lead some channels to invoke certain feelings in the viewer that are analogous to the station's agenda, like how Fox News was regularly accused of siding the Bush Administration.

Fake News

The Daily Show - Dick Cheney's hunting incident

Link to Today Now - Gymnast Shawn Johnson Put To Sleep After Breaking Leg (YouTube)

Personally, my favourite type of news, where it is presented in a humourous way. Examples include The Daily Show, which reports on world events in an intentionally comedic way without distorting facts or publishing lies, and Today Now, which uses subtle humour and sarcasm to "report" fabricated stories based on real life events, more for the purpose to entertain than anything else. Such methods are useful in connecting with the younger generation and people who are thoroughly bored with the conventional news. Viewers will find it quite obvious as to what is fact and what is meant to be a joke, and through this method, awareness and some level of interest is drawn to these topics, as opposed to these people avoiding the regular news and sidestepping these issues altogether. The obvious drawback would be that some level of detail is sacrificed for the sake of humour, and that these programmes always run the risk of misinformation or defamation in the search for comedic material.

Personally, I feel that televised news is the most effective, in terms of currency, information transmission and convenience. However, all forms have their uses and drawbacks. So, which type of news media is the most effective?