All the news that's fit to ignore
According to research by Oxford University's Reuters Institute, strong interest in the news has declined globally over the last six years. The report's authors suggest that this is because readers selectively avoid important stories
, to reduce their exposure to depressing news and protect their mental health.
They seem to have overlooked another explanation: that important
but depressing stories tend to be reported ad nauseum. Take the BBC's coverage of the Ukraine war; the WuFlu pandemic; and even the Eurovision Song Contest, for example. It gets to the point where stories are difficult to avoid, each being cycled; rehashed; and dissected in the minutest detail. There's only so much excess and regurgitation people can take before it gets tedious.
Four in 10 people (40%) say they trust most news most of the time, down two percentage points compared with last year.
Daniel Rosney and David Sillito, culture reporter and media correspondent, BBC News
It says a lot of their target audience that the duo feel the need to convert four tenths to 40% for them. None of it good. Even more worryingly: In the UK, the BBC was the most trusted news brand
. I guess the proles just don't pay that much attention.
A little over 40%—there's that number again!—of children in the range 18 to 24-years-old say that social media, specifically InstaTok, is their primary source of news. Given that this news
comes from celebrities, influencers or ordinary creators [rather] than mainstream news outlets or journalists
suggests they have a healthy cynicism for the mainstream media, or an unhealthy appetite for vacuity.
But, despite the furore caused by Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter, there appears to be no evidence of a mass movement to rivals such as Mastodon
. So Marianna Spring needn't've worried about harrassment on the platform after all; the Twitterati are fine with it as it is. Lovely. (poop)
I can't say for sure, but I get a strange feeling there's a spat going on in the Middle East. Another one.
A couple of days ago, nine of the ten Most Read articles in the BBC News sidebar were about Hamas' attack on Israeli interlopers. That's the choice of the readership, I guess, although they can only read what they're served.