Americans’ Changing Relationship With Local News
More Americans now prefer to get local news online, while fewer turn to TV or print. And most say local news outlets are important to their community.
Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
More Americans now prefer to get local news online, while fewer turn to TV or print. And most say local news outlets are important to their community.
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.
True crime is the most common topic, making up 24% of top-ranked podcasts; 15% of the top podcasts focus on news. The next most common topics are politics and government (10%); entertainment, pop culture and the arts (9%); and self-help and relationships (8%).
Nonprofit news reporters now account for 20% of the nation’s total statehouse press corps, up from 6% eight years ago.
Among the six publicly traded newspaper companies studied, second-quarter advertising revenue fell by a median of 42% year over year.
This project – using the water crisis in Flint, Michigan, as a case study model – examines the question of how media coverage of a current issue in the news relates to public interest in the issue and its relevance to their own lives.
Digital news continues to evolve, pushed by a variety of recent innovations. Here are 10 key findings that show how these shifts are reshaping Americans’ news habits.
On cellphones, longer news stories get about twice the engaged time from readers as shorter pieces do. They also get roughly the same number of visitors.
Facebook sends by far the most mobile readers to news sites of any social media site, while Twitter mobile users spend more engaged time with news content.
Many Americans turned to Google to learn about the Flint water crisis. An analysis of aggregated searches over time illustrates how, in today’s digital environment, public interest shifts as a story unfolds.
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