More Americans get news online than from printed newspapers

Filed under: Internet

More Americans get news online than from printed newspapers

by Brad Linder Dec 25th 2008

Just in case you had any doubt that the newspaper industry is in trouble (or needs to change the way it thinks about content and revenue), Pew has released a study showing that for the first time more Americans get their news from the internet than from traditional newspapers.

To be fair, television still trumps them both. 70% of respondents said that they get most of their national and international news from TV, 40% cited the internet, and 35% said newspapers. The numbers add up to more than 100% because people were allowed to give more than one answer.

What may be the most interesting figure is the fact that 59% of people under 30 said they get most of their news online while an equal percentage said TV was a primary source of news. The kids these days are not as keen on newspapers, which got a response of 28%. Radio came in fourth, followed by magazines.

Now, this isn't all bad news for traditional media organizations. We've seen companies like CNN and the New York Times make some great strides in providing news online over the last few years. Part of the reason people are moving online for their news is because they can find trusted, reliable news sources on the internet. The question that remains to be seen is whether internet news can be profitable enough to fund the kind of in-depth journalism old-school papers like the New York Times have been doing for years.

[via CNET]

Tags: journalism, news, pew

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

DmSteve said 11:27PM on 12-25-2008

It's Christmas, take a break.

Thomas Deuerling said 11:28PM on 12-25-2008

You're right. I cancelled my newspaper subscriptions long ago. Now I have a variety of RSS feeds and have my Yahoo home page set up for news links

Kimoeagle said 11:28PM on 12-25-2008

Whereas I agree with the headlines and the story as written, I take exception to this concluding comment:
"The question that remains to be seen is whether internet news can be profitable enough to fund the kind of in-depth journalism old-school papers like the New York Times have been doing for years."
IMHO, the NYTimes has NOT been doing in-depth jounalism, nor have they been doing OBJECTIVE reporting for a number of years.Years ago, the NYTimes and the Christian Science Monitor were both consistently objective and professional in their news gathering and in news reporting. No longer. I find only one publication that has consistently been both bi-partisan and objective: the Christian Science Monitor.
Media coverage of news in the US has been bias and unprofessional in content and perspective, and I feel that THIS is why an increasing number of people are turning toward the Internet to read their news -- whether it be news from a foreign source or from a blog, or elsewhere.
I hope that editors and publishers realize that the public will have their say as well, by ignoring the newstands that are festooned with the tabloids of today.

dejal said 11:28PM on 12-25-2008

As Kimoeagle says, the NY Times is one of the most biased organizations out there. Not that everyone else is unbiased, but NYT doesn't even try to hide theirs. They lost me years ago, with their plagiarist "reporters" and stories made from whole cloth.

rboyett said 11:28PM on 12-25-2008

I use several news abrogators to get my news.

Anyone not under a rock already knows Drudge and Huffington but I've come to really like http://www.insideautomotive.com by Ed Wallace. There are several auto related articles there but for the most part I find news articles that you never see in the main stream and well before even Drudge. Good stuff..

Geir said 10:48AM on 12-26-2008

I haven't met a single person who uses either medium exclusively, pretty much everyone gets their news from many sources. What the graph shows is that the Internet is increasingly a delivery mechanism for the news that reach people, it doesn't say anything about the professionalism of the journalism or how much in-depth it is.

The trend is that news spreads quicker than before, and thus the environment changes especially for newspapers.

Quikboy said 2:10PM on 12-26-2008

I use both. I like how my Houston Chronicle posts a lot of local news, and the tons of funnies available (thought chron.com has included many than any other site I know), and sometimes there are specially done pages on a topic with lots of graphics, images, and stuff.

I just don't like the insane amount of ads in some places, and having to recycle the stacks of papers at the end of the week can be a handful.

Online news will be the mainstream someday, though we're just breaking the point as of now. It's just more convenient, usually free of cost, and offers much more up-to-date news and even graphical features and videos.

Casey Applen said 2:28PM on 12-26-2008

I agree Geir.

I read it all, from everywhere. Print, blogs, online, mags. It ultimately depends and physical or electronic convenience. There remains something nice about hard copy with breakfast in the morning.

But with the advent of interactivity and social spheres, therein lies the attraction for online reading for me.

Tom Prefling said 3:52PM on 12-26-2008

I think it's interesting that for more than 30 years now, television beats any other medium as Americans' source for news by more than two-to-one.

The biggest problem with TV news and newspapers is that they are using the Internet for their sources of news information. The only problem is that Internet "news" isn't news and it isn't journalism. I'm not even sure it's information. Much of the time it's rumor and innuendo, mixed in with a liberal dose of bias (pun intended).

Small Business Marketing said 9:06AM on 12-27-2008

There are two factors working against the newspapers and in favor of the Internet
1. As more browser and easier and cheaper browser support gets to the handheld devices,, more of today's generation will tune in for news feeds especially if they are presented in small bites. This will directly compete with the television and because of the small bites, it will make sense to get news on the go via browser and not TV.

2. As we move to a greener economy, more people will be thinling of trees and we will move more and more to a newspaperless society. So the newspaper companies may survive but they will be presenting their news via browsers on the internet.

Smallblogger said 8:59AM on 12-28-2008

Yes because they internet articles are short and straight to the point. Newspapers authors publish long articles. If the internet article is long, I just scan the articles and go to another link.

Another reason should be internet article makes it possible for the readers to add their own opinion about the issue, like what I am doing now.

http://www.smallblogger.com

Erik said 6:07PM on 12-28-2008

Yeah, I don't think I've even picked up a paper in at least a year.

JOHN H said 7:24PM on 12-30-2008

THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE, IF YOU LOOK FOR IT. I USUALLY READ THE INTERNET SO CALLED NEWS, LISTEN TO THE TV BRAMBLE THEN RESORT TO NEWSPAPER ITEMS. TRY TO IGNORE THE SENSATIONALISM, THE HYPE AND JUST PLAIN BIASED BS. BEFORE DRAWING ANY CONCLUTION ABOUT THE TRUTH OF THE MATTER . MOST PEOPLE I KNOW DO THE SAME. EVENTUALLY YOU WILL FIND A THREAD OF TRUTH IN THE 24/7 MYTHOLGY BEING DISSEMINATED TO THE PUBLIC . THEN YOU HAVE TO TUNE IN NEXT WEEK FOR THE REST OF THE STORY

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