Local Newspapers Fact Sheet
Local newspapers have been hit particularly hard by the transition to digital news consumption in recent years, with many forced to shutter their doors permanently.
Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
Local newspapers have been hit particularly hard by the transition to digital news consumption in recent years, with many forced to shutter their doors permanently.
Social media is playing a crucial role in Americans’ news consumption. Today, three-in-ten U.S. adults say they regularly get news on Facebook. Slightly fewer (26%) regularly get news on YouTube.
Black Americans see a range of problems with how Black people are covered in the news. Almost two-thirds of Black adults (63%) say news about Black people is often more negative than news about other racial and ethnic groups. And while few are optimistic that will change in the foreseeable future, many see ways in which that coverage could be improved.
To offer a taste of the variety of topics the top-ranked podcasts represent, and to give a sense of what podcast listeners experience, we compiled clips from the shows we studied.
40% of Black Americans say that the issues and events most important to them are often covered, and similar shares of Asian (38%) and Hispanic (37%) adults say the same.
More than half of Americans (58%) say they are following news about candidates for the 2024 presidential election very or fairly closely.
A declining share of U.S. adults are following the news closely, and audiences are shrinking for several older types of news media.
Nonprofit news reporters now account for 20% of the nation’s total statehouse press corps, up from 6% eight years ago.
In recent years, several new options have emerged in the social media universe, many of which explicitly present themselves as alternatives to more established social media platforms. Free speech ideals and heated political themes prevail on these sites, which draw praise from their users and skepticism from other Americans.
41% of U.S. journalists who are employed at least part time at a news outlet say they would join a union if it were available to them.
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