I agreeto Idea Tool for tracking personal news/media consumption habits, and ownership of those outlets
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Tool for tracking personal news/media consumption habits, and ownership of those outlets

Why Is This Idea Important?: It helps people identify how diverse their information sources may or may not be, and also the extent to which their opinions are shaped by organizations with mutual financial interests. It would be a great tool for helping people recognize how entrenched in partisan politics they are.

The Columbia Schools of Journalism already keeps a listing of print and broadcast media, and its ownership status. Expand this to include Internet sources, and allow users to track and record their 'consumption habits.' Users can then see if 80% of their news and information is coming from the same parent company, what percentage of their information comes from big media companies and how much is smaller-scale or independent journalism/media.

Using existing data from broadcasters, users can select the programs they watch (NBC Nightly News, NPR Fresh Air, Bill O'Reilly, Democracy Now, Daily Show) and read (Drudge Report, The Daily Beast, Financial Times, Washington Post), and be provided with a pie charts and graphs illustrating the ownership and diversity of the sources that inform their opinions.

This would be a pretty simple idea to execute, and might be done by simply working with Columbia to expand their current project. It would be ideal to host it on an expanded Fed, State and Local OpenCongress-style Sunlight Foundation page, where users can come to learn about and influence their government. An extremely cheap and easily developed tool, with great benefits.

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Submitted by carrick.baugh 3 years ago

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Comments (7)

  1. tttahiti

    [Thanks for the heads-up. "carrick" (author) spotted my Idea #664, "Who Owns the Media," and referred me to this spot.]

    Good one. It's a start. I gave it a thumbs-up. But it'll never reach the masses. Didja ever try keeping a food journal? That's a job, and no one will do it unless they have and recognize that they have a serious illness.

    If the ingredients and nutritional information are right there on the box, it's easy enough that you'll end up looking at it while you're chewing. Or better yet, before you buy.

    3 years ago
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  2. luvwith

    We must have public financing of campaigns...period!

    I know you think you don't want to pay for it...but you already ARE!

    Every no bid contract, every unpaid royalty on an oil lease, every blocked piece of legislation that is supported by the majority because some committee head is paid off or intimidated into inaction, every blocked investigation...YOU PAY AND PAY AND PAY!

    You pay hundreds of times what you would to finance campaigns in A CORRUPTION SURCHARGE!

    AND WHERE IS THAT MONEY SPENT? THE MEDIA? Do you suppose that alters their views and who they ask to speak on their morning shows? DUH!

    3 years ago
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  3. carrick.baugh

    tttahiti,

    I think it'd be easier than one first imagines. Take a look at the CSJ tool.

    This would be a listing of all news media (a zipcode entry area would heavily filter down the options.) You'd checked off the media you consume, the same way you check of "interests" when you sign up for an email account.

    You could use it quickly once by clicking through your average 'consumption' and seeing your results. If you wanna get really specific, you can track your consumption over a day or week if you want. For really curious users, a "minutes" field could accompany each media option, to get your exact proportions.

    For the casual curious user, it wouldn't take more than 5-10 minutes to fill out your sources, then see who owns your info.

    "What magazines do I read? ..newspapers? ..TV news? ..online news?"

    There's a lot of ways the data could be cut and interpreted (to illustrate quality, medium, etc.) -- ownership, portion read vs viewed (text vs moving image), Pew Research reported political bias, journalism awards and bad journalistic ethics controversies, etc.

    3 years ago
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  4. carrick.baugh

    Oh yeah. I think slapping this onto OpenCongress or writing it as a social networking app (where results can be displayed for others to view), is the best bet.

    Luckily, it doesn't require much text (screen area), and no secondary pages, so it'd work well as an addition to something else. Standing alone it'd never be found or used.

    3 years ago
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  5. tttahiti

    Carrick -- I'm not finding anything. Do you have a link about "The Columbia Schools of Journalism already keeps a listing of print and broadcast media, and its ownership status." ???

    All I'm finding just comes back to this place or the Sunlight Foundation.

    3 years ago
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  6. tttahiti

    Seriously. I can't find anything at all.

    3 years ago
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  7. carrick.baugh

    Shit, woops. Its the Columbia Journalism Review

    http://www.cjr.org/resources/

    3 years ago
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