I Read Some Marx (And I Liked It)

Recently my boyfriend and his brother made a comedy video for a seminar they were teaching on Marx. The video was designed to engage the kids in the topic-- not to disseminate the ideas of Karl Marx. The video, entitled "I Read Some Marx (And I Liked It)" has generated some response from a number of political bloggers across the globe.

The reactions are varied (typing in the name of the video in Google will bring up the blogs), from socialists celebrating the video, to neo-cons essentially hailing it as the problem with global politics today. Most of them, however, miss the point...this is a joke. You only have to watch the first 10 seconds of the video to realize that these guys are not serious.

So my question is this: should political journalism be this reactionary?

It seems that if this video can elicit this reaction (or overreaction, if you will), how would these bloggers handle real news? Are they simply looking for evidence to support their own agendas? If so, how do two guys singing to Katy Perry do so?

It seems that journalism is moving more towards narrowcasting (especially in the age of independent bloggers), but does that mean that we need to hyper-analyze every video that comes on YouTube, in case it might be the signal of the end of the world? Or should we take a deep breath and try not to take things so seriously? Where do journalists fit in this picture? Should we look at every news source we can, even comedy? I think so. Should we have this visceral a reaction to comedy? Maybe. But we also need to remember the source.

The journalism surrounding this video just seems very irresponsible, as well as trivial. Blog about something that really matters, please. I don't think that the silly antics of two guys in a dorm room are going to drastically influence global politics. But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the Pokemon shirt is all part of the Communist plan to brainwash the youth of the world. Who knows.

Hold Your Tongue

Last semester, my Facebook page got a major facelift. When I began working for the Daily Tar Heel, I had to remove all evidence that I had ever had an opinion on anything, lest it compromise my integrity as a journalist.

Rationally, I knew why I had to do that. I knew that if people read my stories, then looked on my Facebook page and saw that I had supported Obama in the 2008 election, they might make certain assumptions. But as I cancelled group memberships, and changed my political affiliations, I got a sinking feeling in my stomach.

Did I really have to hide who I am to be a good journalist?

This question nagged at me the whole semester. I could not justify hiding my opinions. And in the age of the Internet, I'm not sure that I have to.

Within the ever expanding blogosphere, more and more journalists are maintaining personal blogs. Blogs that investigate, report and yes, even analyze breaking news and continuing stories.

The danger with political blogging, however, seems to be the risk of the proverbial soap box. Some bloggers seem to use their power to broadcast their opinions to the world to rant about what they think is wrong with government, without providing enough detail to support their claims. Bloggers can also really hurt the impact of their stories if they undermine them with sarcasm, even if they are making valid points (see Michelle Malkin's live feed from the 2010 SOTU).

But are bloggers like Malkin, or members of Daily Kos, the future of political journalism? Or is the new model for political blogging going to follow the centerist, "unbiased" (if there can be such a thing) Talking Points Memo?

With newspaper circulation declining, it seems that some papers have turned to blogs to help boost their Web site views. But some papers are not doing a very good job at blogging, it would seem.

Take the News and Observer. Their blogs WakeWatch and Under the Dome seem to be more of their old formulaic stories, just placed under the header "blogs." It seems that posts are more updates than actual analysis. So why are they called blogs?

As we move forward in rethinking journalism, we must remember to rethink. What good is a new format if it's the same writing style, the same stories?

Perhaps we need all kinds of blogs, the same way we need different news stations, radio stations and papers. We need the variety of opinions, the wide number of stories and versions of stories to find the truth.

Blogs are quite possibly a large part of the future of political communication. Perhaps if candidates and representatives maintained blogs (or their staff did), their constituents would better understand how they were being represented. There is danger in this, however, in that citizens would have to be discerning in what they believed. Citizens would probably have a greater responsibility to fact check on their own, rather than just relying the source at face value.

As journalists, we need to make a decision: are we ready to have opinions? Or do we keep writing straight news stories? Do we keep what we think to ourselves? Or follow the old rules?

A Sip of Tea, anyone?

In the past two years we have seen a lot of political "change." President Obama launched the first successful multimedia campaign, sending text alerts to voters, getting donations online, and using Facebook to build a legitimate party base. Obama started a "grassroots" movement among voters who wanted something different in Washington.

However, in this modern age, can any political movement really be "grassroots" anymore?

According to Princeton University's WordNet Search, grassroots is defined as "of or involving the common people as constituting a fundamental political and economic group."

But what we perceive as grassroots, may in fact just be a new type of PR.

Consider the 2008 Obama campaign. Behind each Facebook group, text message or tweet, there was someone carefully drafting the campaign message. By directly involving voters, the campaign was making it seem as if the movement was starting with the people.

The campaign even went so far as to select the top contributors, those most likely to comment or post on the campaign, and set them up with their own blogs about the campaign and Obama's message. By making the voters the political commentators, it seemed that Obama's support was really a "grassroots" movement, while in fact it was simply a carefully orchestrated use of modern technology.

The PR people probably recognized the number of people they could reach via the internet, and so took the campaign into previously uncharted waters to engage voters that might not have otherwise been reached.

The most recent "grassroots" movement in the news is the Tea Party Movement, a group that largely believes that with recent legislation, the government has overstepped its Constitutional boundaries.

While Tea Party organizers claim the movement to be strictly "grassroots," critics have called the group "Astroturf," driven largely by cable news and the political and financial support of key political figures. The group's Web site, TaxDayTeaParty.com, seems to be creating the same kind of campaign that Obama did in 2008, even down to the text alerts. The site also features recent news and endorsements of candidates for the 2010 elections.

But where did this Web site come from? Did someone create it and pay for the corporate text number out of their basement? Hardly.

The Web site was paid for by Liberty First, a PAC. Liberty First's principles are relatively clear: "Less government, less regulation and lower taxes." The group also does not believe that special interests have a place in politics:

"We support candidates who place liberty (the Constitution) first when casting a vote or making critical political decisions. Not special interests, not populist issues (smoking bans, government healthcare, etc) but LIBERTY FIRST."

The PAC is essentially a Tea Party organization committee, but this hardly seems grassroots. It seems like just another political action group organized by politicians, not a group of citizens. However, once again the interactive multimedia campaign makes it seem like all the political ideology of the Tea Party is coming directly from the people.

So back to the main question: In this modern age can we have a truly "grassroots" movement?

Probably not. But then again, maybe we never did. Maybe now we can just see the wizard behind the curtain pulling the levers and pushing the buttons to make things happen. With modern technology, we can be more civically engaged, but we need to pay attention to where what we read comes from. For example, the Tea Party Web site is not from the mind of Larry Jones in Arkansas, but probably from PR people who know what they're doing. Same with the Liberty First Web site. And the Obama campaign Web site.

Modern media and social networking tools make it easy to make our voices heard, but it still is completely our responsibility to make sure that our voices remain true to our beliefs.

Too Young to Care?

In the seminal John Hughes film The Breakfast Club, one of the characters admits to having a fake ID.

When asked why, he responds, "So I can vote."

Sadly it seems that this enthusiasm for civic involvement is often lost on young voters. It seems that the question of how to get younger voters out to the polls during election season has become a perennial struggle. Are we too busy? Too stressed to care? Or do we just not see how the policies that may or may not be put in place affect us?

It's funny. Students at public universities are often outraged when the state hikes tuition, or implements sweeping changes. But tax policy? Welfare? If we're not paying, why should we care?

A recent poll conducted in North Carolina by the Civitas Institute showed that younger voters were generally less able to correctly identify the governing party.

So not only are we not voting, we're undereducated. While most of the numbers in the poll are up from past years, they still are not pretty. Do we assume that because we don't know who the candidates are, we shouldn't vote?

If this is the case, it certainly points back to the laziness explanation. If it's too difficult to get clear, unbiased information about each person and policy, why should we waste our time?

In national elections, we can't avoid the information. Advertisements are everywhere and the heat of the race seems to have a polarizing effect. But in all honesty, I couldn't name the candidates in last year's gubernatorial election. Of course I remember Bev Perdue-- she's the governor, but the other guy? What was his name?

However, presidential candidates are seared into my memory: 2008, Obama and McCain, 2004, Bush and Kerry, 2000, Bush and Gore. But who ran against Easley years ago?

Why is there such a drastic difference? Are we culturally more aware of the big picture rather than the details of state and local politics? Does the media simply cover national politics more?

I have a pretty good idea that the media does give more attention to national news from the content analysis our class just worked on. But is this any excuse?

To become "good" citizens, maybe the burden should be on us. Maybe if we start to seek out information about local happenings (like many hyper-local blogs and community papers are beginning to do), mainstream media will follow.

Whatever the solution, this phenomenon of horribly low voter turnout and under-education in the younger generation must change if we are to have an engaged civic society. It's up to our generation to make change happen.

In 9th grade, I wasn't very good at biology. For this reason, the three extra credit questions that my biology teacher would write on the whiteboard at the beginning of each test were of the utmost importance to me. So when my teacher wrote the question "Who is the mayor of Raleigh?" in green dry-erase-marker on the board at the start of a test I had been particularly dreading, I, along with many of my classmates, let out a long groan. We didn't know.

I did not attend a normal school. In 9th grade, I was actually in middle school still, attending a Montessori school that was a "junior high," meaning that middle school was 7th-9th grades as opposed to 6th-8th like Durham County Public Schools. My class size was 10, and we were some of the most informed and culturally aware people our age. We had to be. We were grilled daily on current events in our Economic/Legal/Political (or ELP, not to be confused with the musical group) seminar. I was reading local, national and international news sources daily but I could not tell you the name of a prominent local official.

This narrative, apart from illustrating my distaste for science, highlights a greater issue in modern media: an outstanding lack in local coverage. Why is it that national news is given greater importance over issues that may affect citizens more directly and immediately?

Now, at 19, I had the distinct opportunity to investigate why I did not know the name of the Raleigh mayor for that crucial extra-credit question. In my journalism class, Citizens and Media, my classmates and I examined the content of six local papers across the state of North Carolina, breaking down the stories into five categories: local political news, state political news, national political news, sports, and other.

We studied 14 issues each of The Winston Salem Journal, The Greensboro News & Record, The Charlotte Observer, The Raleigh News & Observer, The Wilmington-Star News and the Fayetteville Observer. The purpose of the study was to discover just what newspaper readers in North Carolina were reading about in their local papers. We wanted to know how much political coverage and information was available to people at each level of government.

Our findings may surprise some, but my guess is that most newspaper readers will not be shocked. The combined results of all 84 papers showed 27.1% sports stories, more than all political coverage combined (22.3%), with miscellaneous stories (crime, features etc.) making up the majority of the papers (50.6%). Here are the overall numbers by category:

84 newspaper editions total

Local politics/govt stories: 336 (6.4%)

State politics/govt: 272 (5.1%)

National politics/govt: 569 (10.8%)

Sports: 1,432 (27.1%)

Other: 2,674 (50.6%)

Total articles: 5,283


The only real surprise in these numbers is perhaps that state politics and government get less coverage than local, but, let's face it, both numbers are not good. But why are these numbers so low?

Last week, Professor Towns made the assertion that local news is boring. Is that the reason? Is state news just as mundane? But what makes national so much more exciting that there would be such a significant difference in coverage?

Maybe our numbers are skewed by the time we examined papers. We looked at content during a time when the nation was on the edge of its seat watching the Health Care debate. But aren't there issues just as important that affect us as much, if not more, going on in our own state and communities?

Perhaps citizens just aren't excited about what was said at the Town Council meeting, or by their state senator in the legislative building. Are state politics just not as glamorous? Why?

Or is it that we just don't need as much coverage of state and local government in our papers? If the system is the way we want it, why change it?

These are questions that we need to examine. The content analysis was a good start-- it illustrated what many journalists have feared to be true. But now we need to investigate how much we really need state and local coverage in our newspapers, or if we are getting it from somewhere else, like blogs or Web pages.

If we want to be informed citizens come voting day, we need to know what's going on. So yes, we do need state and local news. Now we just need to figure out what's the best way to get it.

Who can we trust?

We live in an age of disillusionment.

In a world with sensationalist headlines by an often polarized media, people often have a hard time taking news stories at face value. Yet there still are some news sources that we trust-- why is that?

It seems that people often believe what they hear when it comes from news sources that have been around a long time: The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Chicago Tribune, CNN, MSNBC, Fox, and the list goes on. During their long history, they have earned the public's trust.

But people don't just get their news from traditional media anymore. These days, social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, provide up to the minute updates of the latest news. Tonight while watching the Olympics, one analyst even quoted a tweet from 1980 Olympic goalie Jim Craig, who was constantly updating during the USA-Canada hockey game, during his broadcast.

But when everybody can be a news source, how do we establish credibility? How often are we misled by our friends tweets and status updates? What about group messages? Are their certain friends or groups that we trust over others, especially when it comes to political news?

Thus far I have had a fairly positive experience with getting news via social media, however, I usually double check the news I get from tweets and statuses. If people posts links, I usually can judge the credibility of the stories by comparing it to criteria I've learned thus far as a Journalism student.

Although on social media sites, it seems that many users are quick to jump to conclusions and repost without really reading or understanding. It seems that social media can be an incredibly reactionary news sources-- people don't really take the time to make their own judgement, or make sure that the information is valid before passing it along.

So do we trust our friends? I think we need to be careful. As users, we must carefully examine the information we receive before deciding what we believe-- this is true in all cases with news, but we must be especially aware when using social media. If someone posts that classes are cancelled due to weather and she's wrong, do you really want to miss your 9 A.M. exam?

So who do we trust? The sad answer, no one, the operative word being one. In order to get the clearest picture of what is really happening, we must do a little surfing.

By getting multiple view points and reading multiple stories, only then are we fit to make a judgement call-- and promptly post our opinion to our profiles.

The Age of The Internet: Readily Available, Yet Overly Complicated

While the internet may be the "information superhighway," users may still have to take minor detours to find answers to their questions.

This week in Citizens and Media we were asked to use the internet to try and find answers to the following three questions:

1. What did Gov. Beverly Perdue’s last campaign finance report show for cash on hand?
2. How many voters are registered in NC–and what is the breakdown of R, D, and I?
3. Pick a prof–any prof at UNC–and find his/her salary.

For the question number one, I found little to nothing on Gov. Perdue's total campaign expenditures. I searched Google, The Raleigh News and Observer Web site, and NC.gov, and the only article that even hinted at final figures was this one about recent investigations into flights Perdue took during the campaign. However, the numbers in this article were somewhat confusing. You would think for a public figure like a governor, a spread sheet of some kind would be available, especially on a government Web site.

When searching for an answer to the second question, I finally found the answer to my first. Here on the State Board of Elections Web site, Gov. Perdue's expenses are clearly laid out-- if you have the time to wade through the countless links and multi-page PDFs of filings. As an average citizen I did not know where to look for this information initially, but rather stumbled upon it. Wouldn't it be simpler if this data was compiled into one document with ready totals and information?

Continuing my search for the answer to my second question, the number of registered voters in North Carolina and their political affiliations, I remained on the State Board of Elections Web site. This question proved quite simple to answer, as right under the header of the site there are posted voter statistics, including the total number and numbers by party. For a more detailed look at voter statistics, I went on to click the sidebar tab titled "Voter Statistics" and tabbed through the information available there. This data was much more accessible than any of the finance information for Gov. Perdue.

For the final question, I selected well-known economics professor, Ralph Byrns. I began my search on the UNC Web site, using the search bar. No luck. I then turned my attention to Google. Again, no luck. Lastly I tried the UNC system Web site. And once again, no luck. Thinking I must of missed something, I googled "Chancellor Holden Thorp," went to his webpage, clicked on "Departments" found "Accounting," then clicked again on "Facts and Figures," and finally on "Faculty and Staff Data" to finally wind up on this page. And even then I only got general information that was not professor specific.

If this is public information, why is it so difficult to find? Maybe I just don't know where to look, but I consider myself a fairly informed person and it took me at least an hour to answer three questions that at face value do not seem that complicated.

With all this information at our fingertips, why does it feel so out of reach?

Broadcast Yourself

On the first day of class, we began with a discussion of what news sources each of us followed. Surprisingly, none of us said Facebook or Twitter.

But after Professor Towns mentioned these sites, we all had stories to share, "Oh yeah, I heard about that from..." moments, and instances that we had used the social networks to broadcast our own news. But this week a question was posed: Can we get real news from social networks?

The first time I can really remember getting news other than what someone was doing, planning on doing, or what lyrics expressed their feelings at that given moment was the night of Rep. Joe Wilson's "You Lie!" outburst. I saw someone's disbelieving status about Joe Wilson, which included a link. I followed it to Yahoo! News where I read the whole story, and then returned to Facebook to post my own incredulous message to the world.

Now that I'm in college, and particularly in the Journalism School, I'm connected to other students who keep up with current events, I find myself getting more and more information via links, posts and statuses. Tonight for example, one of my classmates status mentioned the Tim Tebow abortion commercial that's been stirring up a fuss. I had already seen the commercial when it aired, but had I not, I would have known that it existed and hunted for it on the internet, just to see what all the hype was about.

Facebook also keeps me connected to campus events. With the Events feature on Facebook, users can invite each other to just about anything. Facebook is linked to my Blackberry as well, so any events that I respond to automatically show up on my Calendar. This is a great way to stay informed as to what is going on when, and it sure beats having to pencil in everything in my DayRunner.

I am a member of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Class of 2013 Facebook group, which occasionally does send out messages that keep me connected on campus. Also, during the last local election, many candidates had their own Facebook groups which allowed voters to stay connected with their campaign activities.

But while events and groups provide some news, they don't necessarily keep me informed of what the Town Council is doing, or whether or not I'll have class tomorrow due to snow (although the second one shows up in status quite frequently). I don't really get much local political news from Facebook unless one of my friends posts a link to a local news source (which does occasionally happen). The only really local news I get comes from the businesses trying to catch my eye and entice me with "College Days" when I can save a dollar on my frozen yogurt, like at Local Yogurt, or get 20% off of a burrito, and for the most part I've found this information credible.

Twitter, on the other hand, seems to be the place to be for local news.

While not a Twitter aficionado, I did find quite a few groups tweeting local news, including the Chapel Hill Chamber of Commerce and the Town of Chapel Hill. So if I can go right to the source, why do I need a reporter telling me what's going on? I can get information immediately from pages like these about what is going on in my town. And they are constantly updating. No more waiting for next morning's issue, the when news is new it's up there.

With resources like these at people's fingertips, it's no wonder that newspapers are becoming antiquated. People can pick where they want to get their news, how many updates they want and how often they want them. It's all very modern, if a bit overwhelming.

State of the Union Coverage

This week in Citizens and Media we were assigned to blog about our experience with the State of the Union address; but two thirds of us were not allowed to watch it.

I was among the third who had to restrict my information about the State of the Union to three blog sites: Talking Points Memo, Daily Kos, and Michelle Malkin.

I read Talking Points Memo's post first. Their coverage was straight forward, and extremely newsy (which is the norm for this site as far as I've experienced). Their first post about the SOTU was more of a summary than an analysis. It provided some key points and quotes (which were often mentioned in the other two blogs, but either praised or criticized). The text of the address and a video of the full speech were available as well.

One thing that I did find a bit sensationalist on TPM, was the coverage of Alito's reaction to Obama's criticism of the Supreme Court. At first there was just a straight piece with a video clip, and then opinion pieces, like this editor's blog, were posted. I really liked that particular post, because it did what I think many blogs strive to do-- look at the viewpoints found in traditional newsources and provide additional commentary. However, I did feel like TPM was trying to generate more hype about the incident than it deserved.

The next blog that I went to was Michelle Malkin. I checked these sites a few hours after the SOTU address, and at that point the only thing posted on her website was her live blog of her quippy commentary. It was nearly impossible for me to take her seriously. It didn't start out all that bad, except for her comment about "Obama's Swagga Recovery Speech," which was entirely distasteful. There was some genuine analysis at the beginning in the first post. However, that's where it stopped.

Malkin began mocking the President's speech, and it became more like "look at how funny I can be" than "let me dig into what he's actually saying." The only time (other than the first post) that she really made a worthwhile comment was when she pointed out that Obama was portraying himself as an outsider to Washington, when, let's face it, he isn't. But these very few insights were overshadowed by Malkin's disrespectful tone and "look at me!" approach to the speech. I did not feel any more informed after reading her feed.

The following morning there were a few more analysis posts by Malkin, and she provided a link to the full text of the speech. While this made her site a little more credible, there was still an extremely bitter taste in my mouth from the night before.

Daily Kos perhaps had the most coverage, although for me it was also the most difficult to wade through. As a reader I appreciated the variety of articles, opinions, live feeds and individual responses to the speech, and got a better sense of what wasn't said. The variety of opinion and the number of contributors made the site seem more like an open forum, which I liked-- there wasn't just one writer ranting the whole time.

In reading these three blogs I felt incredibly informed about the speech, and when we had a class discussion about our experiences, found that perhaps the group of us that had strictly read the blogs was the most informed. However, it was impossibly difficult for me not to watch the speech live. I would have rather had the opinion to watch the speech, form my own opinion, and then gone to the blogs and read their live feeds and response posts. While the blogs did give me a broad based idea of what was and was not said, I felt like I was missing something-- maybe I just needed to hear the applause in between each sentence.

NC Blogs

This week we were asked to examine two blogs that were popularly followed by North Carolina voters during the 2008 presidential election, BlueNC, a left-leaning site and Civitasreview, a site a little more on the right. The posts on each site seem fairly well supported, as they both provide links to the news stories they cite and to the news stories' primary source documents. Some BlueNC posts also include videos (like this) from YouTube or other file sharing sites, while a few Civitasreview postings feature charts and graphs.

But BlueNC's approach is a little overwhelming and seems to rely on the assumption that more sources equal more credibility (often ignoring the reliability of the sources). The text boxes that highlight quotes are an eyesore rather than eye-catching. I much prefered the overall design of Civitasreview-- it was cleaner, and much easier to follow.

It is extremely important to pay attention to the slant of political blogs when perusing the blogosphere. For example, many of the postings I read on BlueNC seemed like attacks rather than interpretations, calls-to-arms rather than analyses. Civitasreview is definitely less shrill, but still it was obvious that the blogger was trying to sway me with each story. I understand that the point of a blog is to voice an alternate opinion, but does it have to dupe readers into believing something?

Neither blog made me feel more informed about North Carolina politics. In both cases it seemed that the bloggers assumed that their readers know what is going on (even though they provide links, they were written in more like memory cues). Both blogs also seemed to be targeting groups that would already agree with their politics. They seem to be in the business of consolidation ("here's a story, this is what you should think") rather than investigation ("here's a story, is this really all that's there?").

In the era of blogs, everyone can be a "journalist." But it's also important to remember that everyone has an opinion. News stories and editorials are not the same thing.

A Brief Introduction

My name is Emily Ellis and I'm a freshman in UNC Chapel Hill's School of Journalism and Mass Communication. I grew up in Bahama (pronounced Buh-hay-muh), North Carolina, on a small horse farm. Growing up, my parents rarely allowed me to watch the evening news because of the graphic images and the war and horror stories often covered. We never got the paper, but as long as I can remember we had the internet. My dad always checked the news online in the morning before taking me to school. I didn't really start following the news until middle school, when I was required to do weekly reports on current events in two categories (political and science and technology) and to engage in "Lightning Round" discussions where we were given two minutes to give a rundown of one major news item. I checked online websites like Yahoo! and CNN, and also followed the web pages for local news sources like the News and Observer and WRAL. I also read Muse Magazine religiously, and occasionally read articles in the Wall Street Journal. I became even more engaged in following the news when I joined my high school's World Quest team (an academic quiz bowl equivalent that focused on national and international current events and issues). I changed my homepage to BBC's international news page, and began to click through headlines religiously. I also listened to NPR on the 45 minute drive home from high school once I had my own car. Now I have three separate RSS feeds on my browser toolbar, and frequently watch CNN. I also read the Daily Tar Heel, my campus newspaper, to get news about local events. I also get daily emails from Slate Magazine with its top ten news stories of the day. Last semester I also was required to take out a subscription to the NYT for a political science class, which has since run out, and this semester I am required to read the Wall Street Journal for an economics course.

My community in general gets news from a wide variety of sources. I think for the most part people follow the local TV stations for local news, and stick to larger stations like CNN, MSNBC and Fox News for national and international coverage. Many people also tune into NPR, but some of the music stations also give hourly news run downs, so I'm sure some people get their news that way (Mix 101.5 even covers WRAL's evening broadcast). Students do read the Daily Tar Heel, but one of the more unconventional news sources is Stall Stories, monthly fliers posted in the bathroom stalls. While some of them feature funny stories, they also list important dates throughout the month and sometimes have community announcements.

Bahama is only 15 minutes north of Durham, so most of its residents have internet (only dsl or satellite) and television (typically satellite). However, a lot of news about people who live in Bahama (gossip, you could say) is passed around by members of the community, or through the "grapevine." In fact, some of the biggest news in general travels this way. For example, when coyotes were rereleased in Bahama to help control the deer population, my family heard from a neighbor, who heard from another neighbor, who heard from another neighbor who had been fined for trying to kill the animals.

The biggest place for social gatherings in Bahama is probably the Ruritan club, which hosts semi-annual pancake breakfasts and brunswick stew dinners (they advertise via repurposed yard sale signs down the side of the road). The town also has an annual Christmas parade, which is announced typically through fliers, signs and word of mouth, although coverage has grown over the past few years. The town has one main road, which is home to the town's only gas station. On the gas station wall there is a bulletin board with community announcements, for-sale fliers and advertisements. Often the bulletin board boasts numerous fliers offering free or discounted kittens and puppies.

So news sources aren't limited where I'm from, but many people seem to find it easier to just call or chat to get their exceedingly local news. Not a lot happens in Bahama, but when something does, it's bound to be spread around.