Thursday, September 17, 2009

Newspapers a distant fourth as America's news source

As a primary source for news, newspapers are a distant fourth place, behind TV, the Internet, and radio.

Americans still turn to mainstream media to get their news -- but that doesn't mean newspapers are anywhere near their primary source, a survey released Wednesday finds.

Television is far and away the principal medium Americans use to learn about and follow major news stories, according to the 2009 State of the First Amendment national survey conducted by the First Amendment Center.


TV was the first source for news for nearly half -- 49% -- of the survey respondents. Far behind were Internet, the first source for 15%; radio at 13% -- and then newspapers at 10%.


And while newspapers position themselves as the in-depth medium to follow up on stories, TV still dominates when Americans went next-day stories. Some 48% of Americans polled said TV is their primary source for follow-up reports, with the Internet next at 29%, and newspapers well behind at 9%.

I don't think they even give medals for fourth place.
.
.
.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

TV covers a lot of ground since there's network news and news programs and cable news channels. Too bad they didn't break out cable news from network news. I don't trust anything from Editor & Publisher and especially Romenesko and Poyntner. Both are your basic biased mainstream media mouthpieces. Poyntner is the worst of the bunch.

Unknown said...

90 percent of all news reported anywhere starts with a newspaper.

Take that link out of the media food chain and radio, TV and bloggers will all starve.

If newsrooms disappear, there'll be nothing for bloggers to cut and paste, no source for TV reporters to find out what they should be reporting that day, and nothing for DJs to read from on the air.

Anonymous said...

Since they pretty much write what they want and from a particular political persuasion, losing newspaper stories may actually give other media a more accurate take on news stories.

Anonymous said...

Papers won't go away, they'll be in web site formats with a dozen reporters providing all the text. Not to worry, you'll still be able to read the same biased crap if you're stupid enough to pay for it.

Anonymous said...

As print slowly dies, Fox News continues to kick some serious butt. O'Reilly and Glenn Beck have done back-to-back days of record viewership. Beck pulled 4 million viewers Wednesday with a 5 p.m. time slot!!! O'Reilly is averaging more than 4 million the last two nights. Olbermann on MSNBC, can barely pull 1 million liberal nutjobs a night.

Anonymous said...

Probably mostly laid off Republican sitting around in their pajamas watching Beck at 5 p.m.

Anonymous said...

90 percent of all news reported anywhere starts with a newspaper.




That used to be true. The truth is now that 90% of all news reported now starts with a press release form and comes directly from the person promoting their own cause.