Every couple of years, the Pew Research Center for People and the Press releases a study on how people get their news. If you ever wondered why newspapers like to take cheap shots at television, the first line of this AP story will give you the answer:
NEW YORK (AP) - Fewer Americans are reading newspapers and are
instead getting their news online, but television remains the
leading source of news in the country, according to a survey
released Sunday.
Not surprisingly, younger people tend to get more of their news
on the Internet, while older folks use traditional media such as
television and newspapers, the Pew Research Center's biannual
survey on news consumption habits said.
Pew said the results show an increasing shift toward online news
consumption, but that there is now a sizable group of a more
engaged, sophisticated and well-off people that use both
traditional and online sources to get their news.
The Pew researchers referred to these people as "integrators,"
and says they account for 23 percent of those surveyed, spending
the most time with the news on a typical day.
"Like Web-oriented news consumers, integrators are affluent and
highly educated. However they are older, on average, than those who
consider the Internet their main source of news," the survey said.
It is this group that advertisers typically like to target,
which helps explain why newspaper publishers have seen sharp
declines in ad revenues as spending shifts online.
Pew found that the largest group of news consumers - 46 percent
of those polled - have a "heavy reliance" on television for their
news at all times of the day. This group is the oldest, with a
median age of 52, and least affluent, with 43 percent unemployed.
They are unlikely to own a computer or go online for news.
Overall, among those who get some of their news from TV, fewer
are watching the 6:30 broadcast network newscasts, and instead
opting for cable news sources such as CNN or Fox News Channel.
CNN's audience is now majority Democratic, while 39 percent of Fox
News viewers are Republicans, 33 percent Democrats, with the
remainder independent or didn't specify.
The group that relies most on the Internet for news is the
youngest at a median age of 35. It is also the smallest, at 13
percent of those polled. Fewer than half of them watch television
news on a regular basis. Eighty percent of this group has a college
education and they are twice as likely to read an online newspaper
than a printed version.
The emergence of this group and the shift among integrators
online led to an overall decline in the percentage of people who
said they read a newspaper the day before, to 34 percent from 40
percent two years ago, the researchers found. That is also
reflected in a shift in the industry that has seen circulation
figures slip in recent quarters.
The beneficiary of less print newspaper consumption has been
other online news sources, with about 25 percent of the people
surveyed saying they go to an Internet site for news at least three
times a week. That's up from 18 percent in the 2006 survey.
Pew found that consumers of online news tend to be more educated
than those who get their news from traditional sources, with 44
percent of college graduates saying they read news online every
day. Just 11 percent of those who topped out with a high school
education go online for news.
About one-third of those younger than 25 said they get no news
on a typical day, up from about 25 percent in 1998.
The survey was conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates
International. It polled 3,615 adults 18 years or older by
telephone between April 30 and June 1, and has a margin of error of
2 percentage points.
I would be less than honest if I didn't acknowledge that the percentage of people who watch local TV news is also down. That is why we spend so much time and effort updating our website throughout the day, and trying to include as much video as possible, something that newspaper sites are trying to do, if you notice..
