It feels as though I’ve been tweeting since the dawn of time…and by that I mean my awkward high school years. I’ve learned to master the 140 character tweet limit, I thoroughly enjoy live-tweeting award shows and I am up-to-date with anything and everything related to pop culture.
Upon finding myself in the J-School, it became important for me as a student and as a person to change my news-consumption habits if I had any hope of getting through college. I do not like reading the NY Times everyday and I do not find any hard-news reporting to be interesting in the slightest. Quite frankly, I hate it. But as much as I hate it, it is something I needed to learn how to tolerate.
That being said, I’ve found solace in Tweetdeck. I can make lists of a variety of different types of news organizations and journalists and categorize them accordingly. The beauty of this website is that it makes everything simpler: You choose what you do or do not want to see, what you want to follow — including people and hashtags — and how you see these things laid out in front of you.
I have a balanced news diet now. I still follow my go-to entertainment accounts like E! News and MTV, as well as all of my favorite celebrities (Nick Jonas I’m looking at you). But now I also follow journalists like Christiane Amanpour and Ann Curry, as well as news organizations like NBC and the Associated Press.
Having the ability to follow and keep tabs on all of these different accounts is something that will help me in the future. I’m going to have a well-rounded appetite for news (can you tell I’m running out of food references?) which will keep me updated with a constant stream of current events. And what’s better than that?
Stony Brook Stories 