With all the drama and talk about newspaper decline and social media incline I thought I’d list how I get my information. It comes from many different sources which speak to the relevance of these outlets and mediums. Here’s a day in my weekday life, more or less.
Jazz FM gets me started, with music mostly since it’s too early for me to really process anything that’s said.
By the time I get to the bathroom and turn on the CBC I’m awake enough to retain whatever, for the most part, I hear on Metro Morning. Radio continues to be an important medium for me because the news is typically relevant and the music entertaining.
Once I’ve showered I go to CP24 to check the weather and listen for a moment to the banter which I may or may not be interested in depending on the Globe and Mail headlines. I tend to focus on the front section before leaping into the ROB. Sometimes I’ll be distracted by a sports headline but unfortunately I don’t have time on weekdays.
Pretty old school so far.
I do check email on my trusty bberry shortly afterwards. For some reason I’m not inclined towards my online info sources first thing in the morning. Perhaps it’s easier to retain analog info when I’m still basically waking up.
Once I’m awake however I appreciate the news received from a variety of email subscriptions including the NY Times, Financial Post, Marketwatch, Google Alerts, Wall Street Journal. I read these emails throughout the day starting in the morning and rely on them mostly for business and industry news. Admittedly there’s some duplication with the dailies.
Industry news is delivered to my inbox from Adnews, Marketing Daily, Retail Council of Canada, BIOTECanada and PRWeek.
And then there’s the magazines which help inform my day: Economist, ROB Magazine, Canadian Business, Strategy, Marketing, Toronto Life.
My digital Porter Novelli colleagues send me daily delicious tags which nicely aggregate social media and communications news.
My RSS feeds also bring me biz and industry news as well but with a communications focus that tends to be more thought provoking. I subscribe to many including Toronto Star, CBC, mathewingram.com, interPRetation, Strategic Public Relations, mashable, PR Squared, my(PR)palette and pnintelligentdialogue.
And there’s Twitter which more or less falls into the 80/20 rule: 20% of the info is useful, 80% is mildly interesting. I’ve had to stop following a few people even though they had thousands, in some case tens of thousands, of followers.
Fortunately my real-time interactions including face-to-face, calls and IMs don’t suffer from the 80/20 rule. I’m surrounded by engaging people who simultaneously inform, entertain and endure me. This largely live and direct communication typically is a great use of my time and helpful. What I now need to do is distill all my other info to equally meaningful, helpful and manageable chunks.
Campbell Communications 
Great post, Trev.
Great post Trevor and indicative of how many pies the modern PR practitioner’s fingers need to be in today. Like many, I consume media all day long but I have to admit that my morning old-school Globe & Mail with coffee is the most enjoyable.
Thanks Camron and Louise. I think it’s still easier to read black type on white paper. But I don’t print much of what I read online. I wonder which medium is better for retention and how growing up digital might help improve how younger people process online info?
Thanks for the call-out Trevor. I think my day begins in much the same way as yours – print and broadcast and not too much online (though I do use my bb alarm and quickly scan emails when I shut it off).
I wonder if we start with MSM because it’s familiar, comfortable and easy to consume. Or maybe it’s because we don’t have to boot MSM up.