The New York Times, for the most part, has covered the same stories as FiveThirtyEight and The Daily Dish. There are, however, some noticeable differences between the Times and the blogs I have been reading.
The most apparent difference between The Times and the two blogs I’ve been reading is the fact that the blogs are largely opinion based. Sullivan and others will voice their opinions on news stories while The Times is more likely to simply offer nonpartisan coverage of the news. While it should be noted that The Times has an editorial section, the majority of the paper is not opinion-based, as opposed to the blogs. Also, because The Times is perhaps the most influential newspaper in the world, it has a large focus on international news stories. The two blogs I’ve been reading, however, have had more of a focus on only national news.
Something that The Times offers that the two blogs don’t is a very wide-variety of news stories about an array of topics. When I read Sullivan, I expect to read about politics and current events, with a random youtube video thrown in for “mental health” purposes. When I read FiveThirtyEight, I expect to read about politics and public opinion trends. The Times, on the other hand, has a relatively large variety of stories. The front page has included over the last few days, stories about international news, financial news, and even sports news. (And yes, I do find The Times to be biased – they are clearly pulling for the Yankees).
I would say that The Times has influenced my habits in terms of gathering the news. Now usually I will read The Times as a way of becoming informed about an issue, and then I would read the two blogs I chose for further analysis of the stories. My new method usually involves me reading a story from The Times, and then reading Sullivan’s opinion on it, and then reading FiveThirtyEight for an additional opinion and data about public opinion regarding the issue. Fortunately for me I feel that The Times and the two blogs I chose complement each other very well.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Those readings should compliment each other very well, as you said, Allan. I'm glad that these readings and this unit seem to be right in line with your interests.
ReplyDelete