News Feed or News?
In journalism, there is a lot of misunderstanding when it comes to the news. especially news on social media. A lot of people think that news on social media is all real news or some think that the real news is fake news. However, despite this misunderstanding, many news sources are using social media to help them.
How does it help if people are misconstruing which news is real and fake? Reputable news sources are using social media like Instagram, twitter, and youtube to draw more people in to their stories and their news broadcasts. Allowing them to get more viewers and the consumer to get real news quickly and from real news broadcasters. One way that social media helps the news is it can amplify a news story. Sharing a news story on social media, allows the story to reach all audiences. Some people use Facebook religiously, where some use Instagram or Twitter religiously. By a News network having all social media accounts and sharing their stories to those accounts, they are bound to reach a lot of people.
It’s time to face the facts that news isn’t just on television anymore. Now, news is accessible to anyone anywhere. One news network that successfully utilizes their social media accounts is CBS News. They have a website, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook and they make a huge effort to post often when there is a newsworthy story.
CBS is a great example for this topic because they publish news that is real, newsworthy, and they make sure all of their audiences are able to reach it. In this post, I will break down each of CBS social media accounts and point out the positives and negatives, if any, for each. Let’s start with their website.
The purpose of CBS News’ website is to provide news articles and videos for people to know what is going on in the world. These publications are for people who have the desire to read more in depth stories that they might have seen on the news or followed a link to from one of the other social media accounts. The website is for people who want to learn more about the news and who have the desire to look for the news. The positive of the website is that CBS puts every story they tell on their website. The negative is that if you are looking for a certain story, it is a little bit difficult to navigate through. However, there is a search bar which can be helpful.
CBS Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are all used for the same purpose, to share videos, articles, and live update news stories to people who might be more likely to see news stories on social media. Each post in different ways, however. Facebook posts a picture or video and a link to the article on the website if the reader would like to learn more. There is typically a little blurb saying what the story is about to interest readers into clicking the link. CBS News’ Twitter account is run the same way as the Facebook account. However, the Instagram account is different.
https://www.facebook.com/CBSNews
https://www.instagram.com/cbsnews/
One thing I noticed about the Instagram account is that there are more lighthearted stories that are linked posted there. This is interesting when you think of the audience that CBS News has on Instagram. Most people who have Instagram are millennials or younger generations and those audiences don’t particularly want to see upsetting news. That is both a negative and positive for CBS. It is a positive because CBS is still driving that audience to their content which still gets them chicks and can lead to the audience reading other content and becoming more in touch with the news. The negative is that CBS is not exposing that audience to more serious content.
CBS YouTube account is used to post videos that are reporting news stories. YouTube is the most important out of all of the social media accounts because they all root back to it. All videos are linked to their YouTube account where people can watch just about any major story that was reported.
https://www.youtube.com/user/CBSNewsOnline
News on social media is a blessing and also a curse. Some, including myself, only receive news on social media. However, some want social media to be just that, social. Some see social media as a form of entertainment. So what should we do? Continue to put news on social media or press the unfollow button and keep news on the TV?
Like and share this post and let me know what you think.
