Skeptical Public, New Technology Made Alternative News Popular in US

Alternative news sources challenging long-dominant Western-centric corporate-owned media are rapidly growing in popularity and credibility across the United States, boosted by technological breakthroughs and an increasingly skeptical American public, media activists told Sputnik.

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — The comments come following the release of an ICM Research survey earlier in the day, conducted exclusively for Sputnik, revealing that 60 percent of European and US citizens polled were interested in receiving information on global events from alternative news outlets.

"There has long been a problem of the establishment media in this country not presenting a true picture of the true issues facing the country," Jim Naureckas of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) told Sputnik on Monday.

Naureckas explained that the US public is hungry for information and recognizes that being informed is the first step to having the potential to make changes in the world around them. "They recognize the need to educate themselves," he said.

Antiwar.com director of operations Angela Keaton told Sputnik on Monday that much of the increased readership of alternative media could be attributed to improved technology and the greater ease with which the public can gain access.

"We just have a better technology," she said. "People are always curious. But now they can pop a few search terms on to their search engines and find what they want. That gives them more questions that they can find the answers to," Keaton said.

FAIR is a media watch and advocacy organization seeking to correct media imbalance by scrutinizing media practices that slight public interest, peace and minority viewpoints, according to its website. Antiwar.com is dedicated to US non-interventionism, according to the media portal.