(WXYZ) — There are many choices when it comes to consuming news including local stations, newspapers, cable news and networks.
News can be viewed on your phone, TV, streaming devices and heard on the radio.
Depending on how you get your news, it can be viewed differently, especially when it comes to local and national news.
People working in local news live in the community and they’re being impacted by the same things as viewers.
“Local news is strong in presenting factual cases of what’s actually going on,” Dustin Carnahan previously told 7 Action News.
Carnahan is an assistant professor of communications and politics at Michigan State University.
Local news journalists build relationships and inside sources. Trust and credibility drive local journalists in the work they do.
“Trust in the media has been a big and growing problem over the years. But one of the glimmers of hope is local news,” said Robert Yoon, a lecturer at the University of Michigan and associate director of the Knight Wallace Fellowships.
“Local news can play a big part in terms of combating misinformation. Local news sources enjoy a much higher level of trust than national news sources.”
National new stations run slightly differently. They’re on all hours of the day and they want viewers to watch as long as possible.
“They have a lot of opinion on. They have people, sometimes experts, sometimes not very, that are just there to fill the time and share their ideas about things. They’re not held accountable for those ideas,” said Amanda Lotz, a podcaster and professor at Queensland University of Technology.
Past elections are an example of where viewers saw different angles, alternative facts, fake news, mainstream media.
“Wow, we’re so detached from reality we are unwilling to accept truth when it runs against our goals or our values or world view,” Carnahan said.
Also, social media isn’t necessarily news. Anyone can post and algorithms decide what you see including advertisements.
