Couric: And when it comes to establishing your worldview, I was curious, what newspapers and magazines did you regularly read before you were tapped for this to stay informed and to understand the world?
Palin: I've read most of them, again with a great appreciation for the press, for the media.
Couric: What, specifically?
Palin: Um, all of them, any of them that have been in front of me all these years.
Couric: Can you name a few?
Palin: I have a vast variety of sources where we get our news, too. Alaska isn't a foreign country, where it's kind of suggested, "Wow, how could you keep in touch with what the rest of Washington, D.C., may be thinking when you live up there in Alaska?" Believe me, Alaska is like a microcosm of America.
Twenty years ago (in the fading shadows of the Cronkite limited news source era) I could have named the five or six magazines/newspapers I regularly read and got my news from.
No longer. Only a dolt would ignore the hundreds of resources from around the world available on the internet that give a truly world perspective rather than the narrow beltway perspective.
For a broad view of the US, world or particular interest news (Africa, South America, science, energy, etc.) I get almost all my "print" information online from a multitude of sources. There is no "central" set of a few publications.
[Even the CBS interview quoted above is from an online source. I don't have the time or interest each night to wade through a half hour of CBS news two minute summaries of complex issues and some "People" magazine type general interest stories (not to mention that 1/3rd of that time requires watching ads geared to the medical needs of senior citizens--which tells you who watches).]
Network TV and print media keep losing viewers/readers because they no longer meet the information needs of most Americans. Newspapers keep losing older readers and are not attracting young readers. Few young readers find them relevant as news sources. I'm not young anymore--but I agree with the younger generation.
A bonus of online multiple resources is that I don't have to junk up the world with lots of old magazine/newspaper carcasses--most of the pages of which are filled with stories and ads that are of no interest to me.
Katie Couric may have a few central sources she gets her news from, but doesn't seem to get that most serious Americans now get their news online rather than through a few media outlets that are dinosaurs of the past.
I'm with Gov. Palin on this.
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