How do you get your news?

I've often wondered how imminent the demise of traditional sources of media is as the information revolution evolves. The birth of the blogosphere, the advent of electronic versions of the world's biggest newspapers, and the ever-quickening pace of Americans' lifestyles all seem to portend the day when blackberries and RSS feeds, not mailmen and news anchors, deliver the news to the people.

So I was a bit taken with some parts of this Pew Research Center report on how people use various news sources. The subtitle of the report highlights a very interesting finding: "Maturing Internet News Audience Broader than Deep."

These are the 10 most interesting findings that I see in the report, a few of which may run a bit counter to the intuition of a blogger, or of a blog-reader (click full post):


1) Almost a third of people regularly get news online, though this growth has slowed since 2000 and varies demographically (see report).

2) Struggling newspapers "are now stemming further losses with the help of their online editions. However, the discrete online-only newspaper audience is quite modest in size."

3) "While nearly half of all Americans (48%) spend at least 30 minutes getting news on television, just 9% spend that long getting news online."

4) "Those who use the web for news still spend more time getting news from other sources than they do getting news online. In addition, web news consumers emphasize speed and convenience over detail."

5) "Currently, about as many people ages 50 to 64 regularly get news on the internet as do those in their late teens and early 20s."

6) "But one constant remains: Local and community news continues to be the biggest draw for newspapers."

7) "13% [of young people] say they get news via a cell phone, a personal digital assistant such as a PalmPilot or Blackberry, or an iPod or similar portable music player."

8) There "has been a notable decline in the percentage of Republicans following international news most of the time, and the percentage who say they track news about the situation in Iraq very closely. The fall off in interest has been less dramatic among Democrats and independents."

9) "The credibility ratings for most major news organizations are either flat or have slipped since 2004. These ratings are highly partisan, though the political differences for most sources have narrowed over the past year as Democrats take a more negative view in the believability of several leading news outlets."

10) Only 4% of Americans read blogs regularly, and that figure is pretty even over political orientations.