Decades ago, when I worked at a small market radio station, we had a teletype machine outside of the studio. The machine had its own dedicated telephone line and printed almost continually onto paper that came on large rolls. Headlines and stories rolled off of the machine and we tore off parts of the news feed to read. I was the “Get Up and Go” DJ, on the air from 6 am to 9 am, which meant that I read national and state news at the top of each hour. I also read the farm market report and occasionally read news flashes when something dramatic occurred between the hourly newscasts and the repeat of the headlines on the half hour. All of that news came off of the teletype machine, which was provided by the fees the station paid to be a member station of the Associated Press.

One of the stories that persisted around the radio station was about the time when one of the employees set fire to a long sheet of teletype paper while another was reading the news online. The on air broadcaster had to read calmly while trying to stomp out the fire before it devoured the news that was being read. I don’t know for sure whether the story was the report of an actual incident that occurred, someone’s idea of something that would be funny, or something that actually happened in some other place.

I can still remember the sound of the teletype machine printing away each time the studio door was opened. It was one of the reasons we never opened the door when we were actually on the air.

The experience taught me to read out loud in a clear and accurate voice something that I had not previously read. I learned to pronounce difficult words, and learned to listen to the news so that I would hear others pronounce the names of newsmakers, knowing I would have to read their names during my next on air shift. I also learned to time stories, reading faster or slower in order to have our programs synchronize with the network programs that we played live. I could listen to the countdown signal in my headphones while I was reading the news on air and make things come out just right.

Of course, there are no teletype machines these days. Newspapers and radio stations use the Internet to source their stories and exclusive news reports arrive over secure Internet connections to dedicated websites. The timing of radio station broadcasts, even those in small markets, is controlled by computers.

As the methods of delivering the news have changed, I have had to learn new skills to keep on top of the news. I no longer have to be content with a single source. I read parts of multiple “newspapers” online each day. I also have a game that I play with several web sites. I don’t like paywalls on the Internet and I usually don’t pay to get my news. One example is the Washington Post. I scan the headlines of the Washington Post nearly every day, but I don’t pay for a subscription. That means that when I need more than a headline reveals, I have to be creative to read the article. One of the techniques I use is to copy the headline and paste it into the search box on my browser. Most of the articles that appear in major newspapers appear in multiple places on the web.

This morning, I wanted to read an article that is on the front page of our local newspaper, but following the link led nowhere because of their paywall. Entering the headline into the search engine revealed that the same article appeared on other news websites. The Sacramento Bee ran the article and has a limited number of free articles before the paywall kicks in. I’m not a regular reader of the Sacramento Bee, so I could read it there. If that hadn’t worked, it also appeared on the USA today and AOL websites, which do not have paywalls. It was also in the Charlotte Observer, and five or six other locations.

There was a time when you got the same news from multiple radio stations because the stations were using the same sources for their news. These days you get the same news from multiple websites because the websites are using other websites for their information.

Things were different when I worked at the radio station when it came to the separation of news from opinion. We ran opinion pieces, but we were clear to indicate which stories were news and which were option. We had to do that because our industry was regulated by the federal communications commission. Our license required honest reporting of us. During the 1980’s there was a great deal of deregulation of the communications industry and the FCC lost a great deal of its power. That allowed for a single owner to purchase all of the news sources in an area. It also allowed for broadcasters to claim that their opinions were news. The result is that people’s opinions are often shaped by their choice of news sources.

There are so-called news sources that directly broadcast things that are blatantly false. And there are people who are convinced by those false broadcasts. It makes civil discourse a challenge when people disagree about facts that are easily verified. There are a lot of people who do not take time to seek multiple sources of information. Many of them do not question what they read or hear on television or the Internet. They do not check sources.

These days a story that appears in only one source is suspect. If it hasn’t been picked up by some other source it is likely that there is a problem with the story. In a few rare occasions, the story is of such limited interest that no other site wants to carry it, but for the most part a single source means you should question the authority of the article. When there are multiple sources that discredit a particular story, it pays to know how to use snopes.com, poynter.org, or factcheck.org to avoid being misled by viral rumors.

As they used to say in the news business, don’t get caught with your teletype paper on fire.