☀️ Happy Thursday! The Briefing is your guide to the world of news and information. Sign up here!
In today’s email:
- Featured story: White House says it may control reporters’ seating chart in press room
- New from Pew Research Center: Most Americans say they are tuned in to news about the Trump administration
- In other news: Newsmax stock surges after IPO
- Looking ahead: CBS revamps Evening News with more in-depth reporting
- Chart of the week: The reasons Republicans and Democrats are following news about the Trump administration
🔥 Featured story
The Trump administration said this week it plans to take control of reporters’ seating arrangement in the press briefing room, which has long been determined by the White House Correspondents’ Association. This change would represent yet another break from the traditional relationship between the White House and the press that covers it; the Trump administration has also given itself the power to pick which news outlets participate in the press pool and barred The Associated Press from attending certain events.
Most Americans in each major political party say the relationship between the Trump administration and the news media is bad, according to a new Pew Research Center survey. But the American public has heard much less about this relationship than it did during Trump’s first term. In 2017, nearly three-quarters of U.S. adults (72%) said they had heard a lot about the relationship between the Trump administration and the U.S. news media. As of Feb. 24-March 2, when this year’s survey was conducted, just half that share (36%) say they’ve heard a lot about this relationship, although an additional 44% say they have heard a little about it.
🚨 New from Pew Research Center
About seven-in-ten U.S. adults – including similar majorities of Republicans and Democrats – say they have been following news about the actions and initiatives of the Trump administration very (31%) or fairly (40%) closely, according to a Center survey conducted Feb. 24-March 2. More people say they are following this kind of news very closely than said the same in the early days of the Biden administration in 2021 (31% vs. 22%).
In addition, 40% of Americans say they have been paying more attention to political news since Trump took office, compared with just 10% who report paying less attention.
Read more about Americans’ attention to news about the new Trump administration.
📌 In other news
- Newsmax stock surges after IPO
- Gavin Newsom’s new podcast and Democrats’ debate about their future media strategy
- A look at former TV news anchors moving to Substack
- Court allows NYT’s copyright lawsuit against OpenAI to advance
- How newsrooms are trying to grab audience attention amid growing news avoidance
- Bloomberg’s rough start with AI summaries
- The Free Press announces new columnists as subscriber base grows
📅 Looking ahead
CBS has launched a new version of its evening news show, aiming to engage more viewers with a focus on hearing firsthand from reporters and covering more in-depth stories. The network’s audience for the evening news slot has consistently lagged behind that of ABC and NBC, according to our analysis of data from 2016-2022.
The revamp may be especially challenging amid a changing news and information landscape. While far more Americans now say they prefer to get news from digital devices than TV, most U.S. adults still at least sometimes get news from TV. And CBS Evening News has reportedly seen a recent boost in views on YouTube, where 32% of Americans say they regularly get news.
📊 Chart of the week
Our chart this week looks at the major reasons for why Americans in each party have been following news about the new Trump administration. According to a new Center survey, among U.S. adults who are following news about the Trump administration’s actions and initiatives very or fairly closely, identical shares of Democrats and Republicans (62% each, including those who lean to each party) say the personal relevance to their life is a major reason they are doing so.
But there are substantial gaps between the two parties on other reasons for following this news. Democrats are much more likely than Republicans to say concern about what the administration is doing (88%) and difficulty in avoiding the news (56%) are major factors in why they are following news about the administration, though substantial shares of Republicans also cite these reasons (45% and 31%, respectively).
Republicans, meanwhile, are much more likely to say they are following news about the Trump administration because they like what it is doing (64% vs. 8%).
👋 That’s all for this week.
The Briefing is compiled by Pew Research Center staff, including Naomi Forman-Katz, Jacob Liedke, Christopher St. Aubin, Luxuan Wang and Emily Tomasik. It is edited by Michael Lipka and copy edited by David Kent.
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