Comm455/History of Journalism

The earliest newspapers played it safe by limiting coverage to foreign news.  Why risk publishing something the monarch or church didn’t like?

In 2011, one of the most common complaints about U.S. media is that it doesn’t cover international news as much as other countries do.  Why?  Nathan Lustig, a successful college-aged entrepreneur, blogger and British media consumer has an interesting answer to this question.

Lustig states in his blog, “I think the British media believes that its readers actually are intelligent, whereas the American media believes that it has to tell a narrative and present to the lowest common denominator.”

This is a harsh comment, but when considering that there are people who watch Fox news and don’t think a second thought about it, I’m not sure if I can disagree.

So what does this say about social media?  Is social media the ultimate combination of entertainment and quick, credible news?  I understand that I’m addicted to Facebook because it’s entertaining, but I also don’t have to question if my friends’ statuses are credible.  If someone updates their status or tweets about an earthquake or death, I believe them.