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In today’s email:
- Featured story: Launch of the first audio platform dedicated to women’s sports
- New from Pew Research Center: Americans’ views of press freedom
- In other news: Where jurors in the Trump trial say they get their news
- Looking ahead: Biden signs bill requiring ByteDance to sell TikTok or face a ban
- Chart of the week: Majority of Americans say they see TikTok as a threat to national security
🔥 Featured story
iHeartMedia and Deep Blue Sports + Entertainment announced on Tuesday that they are launching the first audio platform exclusively for women’s sports. The Women’s Sports Audio Network (WSAN) will be free to use and will include podcasts, sports reports, and stories about athletes. This comes at a time of increasing media coverage of women’s sports as well as growing audiences for audio media.
According to a 2022 Pew Research Center survey, about half of Americans said they had listened to a podcast in the past year – and that number rises to two-thirds among those ages 18 to 29. About one in five U.S. podcast listeners (22%) regularly listen to sports podcasts.
🚨 New from Pew Research Center
A new Pew Research Center survey explores how Americans view the freedom of the press and how much influence political and financial interests have on U.S. news organizations.
Key findings include:
- Nearly three-quarters of U.S. adults (73%) say the freedom of the press is extremely or very important to the well-being of society.
- Most U.S. adults (79%) believe the media are at least somewhat free to report the news in the country. However, only a third say they’re completely free to do so.
- Republicans and independents who lean toward the GOP are consistently more likely than Democrats and Democratic leaners to express concerns about press freedom.
Read more about the findings here.
📌 In other news
- Where jurors in the Trump trial say they get their news
- A study looking at the state of local news in Maryland
- Columbia University’s student newspaper strives to avoid national media misreporting on protests
- How reporters are learning to cover climate change stories
- New York state approves $90 million in tax credits to hire local journalists
📅 Looking ahead
Yesterday, President Biden signed a bipartisan bill into law that forces ByteDance to sell TikTok, or the platform will face a ban in the United States.
The share of U.S. adults who say they would support the U.S. government banning TikTok declined between spring and fall 2023, according to Pew Research Center surveys. Half of Americans said they would support a ban in March 2023, and this share declined to 38% later that year.
📊 Chart of the week
In a 2023 Center survey, about six-in-ten Americans (59%) said they see TikTok as a major or minor threat to national security in the United States. These views vary by age: Just 13% of adults ages 18 to 29 say TikTok is a major threat. This share climbs steadily across age groups, reaching 46% among Americans 65 and older.
👋 That’s all for this week.
The Briefing is compiled by Pew Research Center staff, including Naomi Forman-Katz, Jacob Liedke, Sarah Naseer, Christopher St. Aubin, Luxuan Wang and Emily Tomasik. It is edited by Kirsten Eddy and Elisa Shearer, and copy edited by David Kent.
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