Digital news is not crowding out the old media and may even be invigorating them, a new study of US consumer habits suggests, writes Howard Kurtz
WITH NEWS and gossip leaping off every laptop screen, smartphone and Facebook page, the common wisdom these days is that traditional news outlets are doomed.
But a funny thing happened on the way to the funeral: people are spending more time following the news, rather than giving in to other distractions.
Traditional media are holding on to mindshare: a new Pew Research Center study says that on a given day, Americans spend 57 minutes getting the news from television, newspapers or radio, just as they did in 2000. But they spend an additional 13 minutes each day consuming news on the web, a figure that doesn’t even include stories viewed on cell phones. Highly educated folks, not surprisingly, are driving the increase.
Not everyone is an addict; 17 per cent of those surveyed said they got no news of any kind the previous day. But the 83 per cent who did are drawing their information from a wider variety of sources.
Digital news is not "crowding out" the old media and may even be "reinvigorating them", says Andrew Kohut, Pew's president. He noted that nearly one in 10 people under 30 volunteered that they read the New York Timesonline when asked to name a few websites they use for news and information. Just as the advent of television didn't kill radio, peaceful coexistence may be possible.
It’s hardly time to uncork the champagne, as the overall picture is mixed for the struggling newspaper business. A mere 26 per cent of those surveyed said they read a newspaper in print the previous day, down from 38 per cent in 2006 – a sobering drop, to be sure.
But the decline was partially offset by the websites that newspapers are fashioning as a lifeline to the future. When online editions are added to print readership, 37 per cent of Americans say they got news from newspapers the day before, down from 43 per cent in 2006. In short, it could have been worse.
But the message is clear: building readership online isn’t just a promising sideline for those with printing presses, it’s a question of survival. Only 19 per cent said they read a magazine the previous day, down from a third in 1994.
By contrast, 58 per cent say they regularly watch television news. Online, the websites mentioned most often were Yahoo (28 per cent), CNN (16), Google (15) and MSN (14).
Every survey of this kind finds that big majorities believe the media are biased, and this one is no exception. Eighty-two per cent of Americans say they see at least some bias in news coverage, most often liberal bias. As for those convinced that news organisations show a lot of bias, 62 per cent of Republicans feel this way, compared with 47 per cent of Democrats (and 53 per cent of independents). – ( Washington Postservice)