Online News Has Become More Important than Ever
How do you find your online news sources? Do you search for news sites? Do you just visit the news sites of television programs and magazines you follow? Do you browse news aggregation services? We find news resources in so many ways now that it almost seems like the way we found online news 10 years was in a different universe. Do you remember Web directories? Not professional directories like Yahoo!, but simple collections of link lists that people put together for their visitors’ benefit.
There are still hundreds of thousands of Web pages that document online news resources but hardly anyone visits them any more. Now we find out about news sites through mainstream media, through news stories on the sites we follow, and through advertising. The need for good, old-fashioned friendly neighborhood Web directories has diminished to the point where they almost completely lack value.
Web search is still not very useful in finding good news, despite some advances made by Google, Ask, Yahoo!, and Microsoft with their “blended” search results. One is as likely to find the Federal Trade Commission news page as to find a news resource site. In fact, you may be more likely to find an inappropriate news resource as people begin to develop techniques to influence Web news and Web news search.
It is true that you can still ask professional librarians to help you find good news resources but not everyone has the patience to visit their local library. And some libraries may be better equipped than others to deal with Internet-related issues. What do you do if your local library is not as up-to-date as the better-funded downtown state capitol library system?
News is important to us. It connects us to the world around us, informs of important events that may affect our daily lives. Even just checking the local weather is extremely important. 40 years ago you might call a “weather line” on your telephone, listen to a quick advertisement for a local business, and then hear the weather forecast. Now, you just look online at your local news site and they usually tell you what the weather will be in your area.