Poll: How do you prefer to get your news?

[Chaotic42]

Ars Technica was purchased by Conde Nast and they've been recently moving more and more toward videos in lieu of written articles. They say that they've been getting a lot of complete video views, but their core user base, including subscribers, generally dislike video.

For me, unless the video really adds something, I'd rather just have a text article. I can read so much faster than a video runs and text is searchable, can be copied, etc. Barring that, I'd rather have an audio-only podcast. Between this move and a general move toward less technical things (they have a huge amount of coverage of board games and TV for some reason), I don't know if I'm going to keep subscribing to Ars as my subscription is up in a couple of days. I guess demand for a hard core tech site just isn't what it used to be.

What are your thoughts?

 

[snoopy7548]

100% text-only for me. I can quickly skim an article, read only the relevant parts or parts I want to read, and quickly copy important sections to show a friend, all with the volume off (good if you're at work). If I click on a news story and it's just a video, I immediately close the window and either look for a text article or just move on.

I don't care if they have a video (no auto-play, please) to go along with the article, but video will never replace text articles. Especially those stupid slideshow videos on CNN that present a sentence worth of "information" every five seconds.

When I get to work, I like to read a few tech news sites and Ars is my main one. I usually open up four or five articles in different tabs and either completely read or just skim through the article and read the comments. There's no way in hell I'm going to watch or fast forward through five different videos. The thing with videos is they require your full attention. You can read an article while listening to music, watching TV, or listening for your boss to walk up behind you.

 

[FelixDeCat]

I prefer my news third hand and from unreliable sources, this way I always get the inside scoop.

 

[lxskllr]

For internet stuff I like text, but I also like radio. I've always liked NPR, but lately their liberal bias has been bugging me. There's nothing wrong with the stuff they report on, but it's narrowly focused. They like to say they're "diverse", but they really aren't. It's all a shade of progressive politics. They define the narrative in their selection process.

I enjoy the Cato Daily Podcast, but that requires me to download episodes, and make time to listen. I'd love to hear that mixed into NPR's broadcast on the radio.

 

[IronWing]

I prefer my news third hand and from unreliable sources, this way I always get the inside scoop.

Lie to me, I promise I'll believe
Lie to me, but please don't leave

 

[Elixer]

Highly depends on where I am at. If in a car, radio.
If at desktop, depends on what is the news story, sometimes text, sometimes video, sometimes audio.
If on a mobile device, again, it depends on what is going on.

Though, if I know a site places ads in the video, or audio streams, then I go for text.
If there are ads in the text version, and adblocker doesn't kill them, or the site requires adblocker to be turned off, I don't visit that site at all from that point on.

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

I use Reuters news - via their Android App.... If they didn't have the app I would just go to their website directly.

At this point, it's my only news source.

 

[GagHalfrunt]

Text. I read a hell of a lot faster than an anchor or reporter can talk and I can skip the parts of the story that are of no interest.

 

[IBMJunkman]

It pains me to watch TV real-time. Using my DVR lets me skip the commercials. I prefer text as I can read while watching TV. I am writing this while ‘watching’ Dr Jeff.

 

[Mayne]

my daily rag went all app looking...i hate it now. And there is less content now.

 

[AMDisTheBEST]

News are literature so read it.

 

[Mayne]

can't even view the Sunshine Girl now

 

[pete6032]

Text
I never watch the videos that accompany news articles online.

 

[Mayne]

I spend half my time trying to close any stupid videos especially at 6 in the morning. Loud as fuck.

 

[Thebobo]

For internet stuff I like text, but I also like radio. I've always liked NPR, but lately their liberal bias has been bugging me. There's nothing wrong with the stuff they report on, but it's narrowly focused. They like to say they're "diverse", but they really aren't. It's all a shade of progressive politics. They define the narrative in their selection process.

I enjoy the Cato Daily Podcast, but that requires me to download episodes, and make time to listen. I'd love to hear that mixed into NPR's broadcast on the radio.

I'm still pissed they took Science Friday off the air, well at least in DC.

 

[Ken g6]

I generally prefer text too, except that I do like live TV news. I don't like video news on my computer or even on demand.

 

[lxskllr]

I'm still pissed they took Science Friday off the air, well at least in DC.

I think we still have it here. I like that show, but I'm not usually in the truck when it comes on. You can get it as a podcast, and I was doing that for awhile, but again, that requires making time to listen. I have some kind of hangup listening to news on my phone. If I pick it up, I usually select music. I like my news on old fashioned radio.

Cato had an awesome podcast regarding NPR's bias, but I can't find it atm. It described perfectly my issue with it, and my search for intelligent conservative news(how I found Cato). Most news sucks. It's either fluff or partisan fuckery. I'd love to hear a conservative NPR, preferably mixed in with "classic" NPR for real diversity.

 

[lxskllr]

I think we still have it here. I like that show, but I'm not usually in the truck when it comes on. You can get it as a podcast, and I was doing that for awhile, but again, that requires making time to listen. I have some kind of hangup listening to news on my phone. If I pick it up, I usually select music. I like my news on old fashioned radio.

Cato had an awesome podcast regarding NPR's bias, but I can't find it atm. It described perfectly my issue with it, and my search for intelligent conservative news(how I found Cato). Most news sucks. It's either fluff or partisan fuckery. I'd love to hear a conservative NPR, preferably mixed in with "classic" NPR for real diversity.

Found it...

https://www.cato.org/multimedia/cato-daily-podcast/does-public-radio-have-diversity-problem

It was still in my player queue. It's not very long, and might be interesting to someone. They nailed the issue exactly, and it's reason I looked around for additional news sources.

 

[bononos]

It depends on whether I'm listening or reading the news.

.............
Cato had an awesome podcast regarding NPR's bias, but I can't find it atm. It described perfectly my issue with it, and my search for intelligent conservative news(how I found Cato). Most news sucks. It's either fluff or partisan fuckery. I'd love to hear a conservative NPR, preferably mixed in with "classic" NPR for real diversity.

Its odd that you would think that NPR is 'liberal' biased, and used a link from Caldara on Cato to back your statement. Cato is completely funded by right wing interest groups like Koch and push an extremely conservative view of economic liberalism. I would think that after the economic collapse, wasteful wars and decades of free trade that didn't work, conservatives would be more careful to temper their views. But idiots like Caldara don't have to do any real journalistic work to be able to continue to put food on the table since their conservative backers only care about complete loyalty without any regard for professionalism or ethics and will continue to shovel money at him.

See Caldara's current i2i homepage - assault on math, help a smug liberal cry. His articles are the sort of rubbish anyone should be ashamed to read but NPR should give guttertrash like him more public space?

 

[lxskllr]

It depends on whether I'm listening or reading the news.



Its odd that you would think that NPR is 'liberal' biased, and used a link from Caldara on Cato to back your statement. Cato is completely funded by right wing interest groups like Koch and push an extremely conservative view of economic liberalism. I would think that after the economic collapse, wasteful wars and decades of free trade that didn't work, conservatives would be more careful to temper their views. But idiots like Caldara don't have to do any real journalistic work to be able to continue to put food on the table since their conservative backers only care about complete loyalty without any regard for professionalism or ethics and will continue to shovel money at him.

See Caldara's current i2i homepage - assault on math, help a smug liberal cry. His articles are the sort of rubbish anyone should be ashamed to read but NPR should give guttertrash like him more public space?

The Cato institute is a libertarian think tank. Naturally, they're gonna be biased in that direction. That in no way negates the fact that NPR is biased to progressive politics. The difference is NPR claims diversity, but doesn't deliver. With Cato, you get exactly what's listed on the box cover.

 

[bononos]

The Cato institute is a libertarian think tank. Naturally, they're gonna be biased in that direction. That in no way negates the fact that NPR is biased to progressive politics. The difference is NPR claims diversity, but doesn't deliver. With Cato, you get exactly what's listed on the box cover.

People like Caldara would prefer to see NPR dropped completely since it doesn't make sense for the govt to be into 'news' when there are so many big news corps providing that service even if they are doing a bad job. And I doubt that Caldara's numbers if he has any really adds up. I remembered a good study which showed that mainstream news outlets have more conservative guests and analysts, probably because the mainstream news corps are controlled by conservatives and promote conservative views especially economic ones.

 

[lxskllr]

People like Caldara would prefer to see NPR dropped completely since it doesn't make sense for the govt to be into 'news' when there are so many big news corps providing that service even if they are doing a bad job. And I doubt that Caldara's numbers if he has any really adds up. I remembered a good study which showed that mainstream news outlets have more conservative guests and analysts, probably because the mainstream news corps are controlled by conservatives and promote conservative views especially economic ones.

Yup, that's a diverse opinion. No one said you, me, or anyone else had to agree with it.

Any comments on the specifics of the podcast I linked? The author isn't considered a specific in the context of this discussion.

 

[TeeJay1952]

Depends. I dislike homegrown media players. If something doesn't want to play in my browser (without much effort) I will agree and go somewhere else for that info.

 

[BurnItDwn]

I hate when audio/video clips start playing on their own. I may ocassionally watch some news clips, but, 99% of the time, prefer to read text.

 

[JulesMaximus]

In bed with my coffee and breakfast.