Turns out that when readers can actually select news stories that they're interested in, their choices are somewhat different from what traditional media wants to feed them. A Project for Excellence in Journalism report reveals that what people Digg and Reddit never happens overseas.

The biggest story for traditional news providers was a debate in Congress about reforms to immigration policies, accounting for 10 per cent of all news stories. It appeared just once as a top-10 story on Reddit, and not at all on Digg and Del.icio.us, the study found.... In addition, the analysis showed that coverage on the user-news sites focused more on domestic US events and less on news from abroad. Technology and science stories were the most common on the user sites.

Does this mean that we're getting dumber or that the mainstream media is hopelessly out of touch with its audience? Or that the people who tend to frequent user-generated sites are more likely to be tech geeks than the average reader? We have no idea! We know you like stuff about Britney Spears and naked pictures of Vanessa Hudgens, though, so we're just gonna stick with that. Screw immigration; it's Lindsay Lohan sex tape time!

User sites diverge from mainstream agenda [FT]
Your Vote Counts [PEJ]

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