I got good news and bad news for you. The good news? Most Americans know what it takes to be a good consumer of news. The bad news? The news is irrelevant. And perhaps social media is to blame.
Almost halfway through the year, we’ve seen multiple outlets hand out layoffs. And last week, we held a funeral service for CBS News Radio. While 47% of Americans believe it’s important for people to regularly get news, the other half of the country says they get news “mostly because they happen to come across it.”
Read that again. Half the country, a large majority of whom are young adults, gets news “mostly because they happen to come across it.” This spells disaster for our future unless we act.
This data comes from Pew Research’s latest “short read.” Quietly, this month, the outlet released “What Americans Think It Takes to Be a Good News Consumer.”
The Good News
The great news is that people know what it takes not to become a brainwashed partisan consumer.
Pew reports 20% of those polled believe “being discerning or skeptical” is part of being a good consumer of news. They added, “Another common description of a good news consumer is someone who remains informed.
The 17% of responses that included this idea said things like “Follow the news on a daily basis” and “Try to stay informed on current events.”
Other key phrases people put forth as hallmarks of a good news consumer include “find reputable outlets” and getting news from “a variety of sources.”
The Bad News
The “short read” opened up like the 1984 version of Apple Writer II and can be easily overlooked. In part because it doesn’t have the visuals we’ve become accustomed to. But also because it isn’t one of Pew’s top three data points when you visit their media page. It didn’t hit the home page; to be honest, it’s a little buried.
The report comes as a follow-up to February’s data dump about America’s relationship with the news. The media as a whole can’t survive if people are flippantly coming across their latest and greatest report amid doomscrolling. Literally, if you play craps, roulette, or blackjack, you’d have higher odds of winning than of popping up in someone’s compulsive scrolling.
So for us, as curators of the news, our goal shouldn’t be to make the most explosive news — even though that’s seemed like the go-to approach since Buckley vs. Vidal in 1968. Instead, we should Make America Care Again.
The MACA Plan
Why should we make America care again? Because as mysterious as Meta, Google, and any other tech company is about their algorithms, it all comes down to a very simple, stupid science: overstimulate the brain with dopamine to keep you coming back for more. That’s it.
I don’t care what any tech nerd has to say about algorithm technicalities. Social media — where most people are getting their news — is designed like a slot machine. Don’t like what you see on your Twitter feed? Pull down, and it’ll populate more stuff you care about.
And there’s that word again: care. The internet knows what our audience — or potential audience — cares about. The algorithm nerds won’t be changing anything in our favor. So unless something on our end changes, there will come a day when people won’t “happen to come across” news anymore.
This is why you need to meet people where they are with the news.
Meet People Where They Are
Here’s a prime example. In April, New York State lawmakers passed a law banning potassium bromate, red dye number 3, and propylparaben. So what did every single news outlet do? They went and talked to restaurant owners. The story became about how this will affect a small business’s bottom line — and, of course, the world’s best pizza and bagels.
Not a single outlet in the number one market went and talked to regular people about the change. This is one of the most obstinate failures to meet people where they are.
All you had to do was turn to any customer in that restaurant and ask, “Do you think this legislation will affect your daily bagel and smear?”
There are more than seven local TV stations in various languages, plus multiple radio news and digital and print outlets in that market. How not one news director, managing editor, reporter, or photographer thought to ask a customer whether they were concerned about the taste of their food is beyond me. You failed to make the audience care.
Instead, reporters filed a report and hoped that with the right SEO phrases and algorithm tricks, it would magically appear in every New Yorker’s news feed. Well, it didn’t. You made it about the business, not the customers who keep the business alive. You didn’t give regular people a reason to care.
Sure, lots of people will care about lots of different things. But the one thing everyone in this world cares about is the impact anything — legislation or otherwise — will have on their life.
The best example I can give you is this: as a mom, I care about the food legislation because my born-and-bred New York kids won’t taste red dye #3 on their Sunday morning rainbow bagel with strawberry cream cheese.
When they say, “Mommy, this tastes different — I don’t like it, can I have something else?” and I have to buy a whole other breakfast because red dye #3 was replaced with beet root powder and the potassium bromate is gone, that’s when I’ll start to care. Sure, I’ll be happy it’s healthier, but at the end of the day, this change is going to affect my bottom line, and that’s why I care.
So yes, you can make people care about the news. You just need to think outside the box and get the audience involved. It’s not about you, and it’s not about whatever local business you’re interviewing. It’s about the community in which that business is built.
People “happen to come across news” when it affects their community. That’s when people will care. Just one extra question can expand your reach tenfold.
Barrett Media produces daily content on the music, news, and sports media industries. Sign up for our newsletters to stay updated and get the latest information right in your inbox.
Krystina Alarcon Carroll contributes features and columns for Barrett Media. She has experience in almost every facet of the industry including: digital and print news; live, streamed, and syndicated TV; documentary and film productions. Her prior employers have included NY1 and Fox News Digital and the Law & Crime Network. You can find Krystina on X (formerly twitter) @KrystinaAlaCarr.
