Twitter Poll Tuesday: News Outlets

This week’s community poll asked where our voters get most of their news.

Megan Helgesen

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December 13, 2016
Twitter Poll Tuesday: News Outlets

This week’s Twitter poll revolved around news, and which news outlets are giving our students and staff most of their knowledge. Respondents were given four options: a TV station, news websites, social media, or other people. After 24 hours, social media won by a landslide.

This poll was made to address different news outlets and how valid our news sources are. Many cable news stations have become partisan in recent years, with popular networks leaning one way or the other on the spectrum: for instance, Fox News leans conservative, while MSNBC leans more liberal. News websites also fall into this partisan category; depending on where you click, the reporting and bias can be different. With the help of social media and technology, talking to our peers has become easier than ever. Does this affect how and where we get our news?

In this generation, that result is almost too obvious. However, if this poll was taken with pen and paper almost 50 years back, the most popular vote probably would have been from a newspaper or the radio. According to Pew Research center, teen Twitter use has grown significantly; 24% of online teens use Twitter, up from 16% in 2011. But really, how reliable is the information coming from social media? There is bias strewn across the news that is exported and shared. So are we truly getting the right information from social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, or should TV news channels try to promote their news more? It’s a question that remains unanswered and untouched.

Check back to our twitter next Tuesday for another poll, and back here next Wednesday for the winning results and feedback on the topic.