Survey Extras

Some of the most interesting and important information I received from my survey came from the open-ended questions. I felt it was important to share some of these answers in this paper because they speak volumes to how citizens view news in general. It doesn't have a direct link to my research questions but does relate to news media consumption.
One participant expanded on an answer to the question “How much have your news seeking habits changed in the last five years?” He chose “not at all” and followed by saying, “I don't seek out more. The way I seek it has changed slightly because of the Internet.” I found this interesting because while I was working on my research, two newspapers, one in Denver and one in Seattle, closed, and this is in part because of how people are now seeking news. The Seattle paper chose to move from a print edition to an on-line edition only and the Denver paper completely closed its doors. Many other papers in the past few months have changed printing schedules and limited circulations as many more have fear of closing any day. This industry, just as many other industries, is struggling to survey in a new world.
I also asked participants what their biggest complaint about news media was on a national level and on a local level. One participant had this to say about national news media: “It dances for a master. There is no true news when money is involved. There is a slant on everything.” While this is true, I must wonder if there is a solution. I mean these companies have expenses the same as any business and with the emerging 24-hour news sources each having their own agenda and platform, is it not still possible to get real news from a corporate source?
My last question on the survey was “Do you have anything else to say about news media?” To this question I received a multitude of answers but three in particular stood out to me.

“We have many news sources. In the end, it's up to us (the consumer) to make informed choices and make our own decisions/form our own opinions. Media is a product - buyer beware!”

“It is poorer than 30 years ago even though we have so much technology. Maybe because of that we look more to putting a ‘face’ on news as opposed to finding facts.”

“It would be nice to find a media outlet that would take a humanistic approach and not follow the 'if it bleeds, it leads' mantra.”