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News Habits & Media

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News Media Tracker

Americans now navigate a quickly changing information environment, with a wide variety of news sources across many different platforms and channels. Explore data on how Americans use, trust and distrust 30 major news sources with our interactive tool.

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News Habits & Media

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    Local TV: Audience Declines as Revenue Bounces Back

    The long slow decline in viewership of local television news resumed in 2012 after a brief respite the previous year. While stations devoted more of their available air time to local news, that wasn’t sufficient to halt the decline in viewership. Early-morning newscasts continued to gain viewers, but that increase was more than offset by losses in most other time slots.

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    News Magazines: Embracing Their Digital Future

    Amid the broad decline of the magazine industry in recent years, news magazines have been among the hardest hit. That trend continued in 2012 for the six publications analyzed by the Pew Research Center, Time and Newsweek, as well as four smaller niche publications – The Economist, The Atlantic, The Week and The New Yorker. Ad pages for the group fell by an average of 10.4% in 2012, about 25% greater than the 8.2% slide experienced by magazines over all.

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    Audio: Digital Drives Listener Experience

    As far back as 2004, Pew Research Center wrote that local news on the radio “appears to have seriously eroded in recent years” with a growing number of stations that “are not local at all.” Then in 2006 we wrote, “Technology is turning what we once thought of as radio into something broader – listening,” and raised the question of what that would mean for radio news. Now, heading into 2013, those two shifts have come together to create a very different audio landscape—one in which news is relegated to a smaller corner of the listening landscape.

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    Americans Show Signs of Leaving a News Outlet, Citing Less Information

    Faced with shrinking revenue and dwindling audiences, news organizations in recent years have slashed staffs and reduced coverage. Most news consumers are little aware of the financial struggles that led to these cuts, a new Pew Research Center survey finds. Nevertheless, a significant percentage of them not only have noticed a difference in the quantity or quality of news, but have stopped reading, watching or listening to a news source because of it.

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    Friends and Family – Important Drivers of News

    When they hear about news events from friends and family, the vast majority of people seek out full news stories to learn more, according to a new survey by Pew Research Center.

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    The Changing TV News Landscape

    The news programs that Americans watch on national cable channels and their local television stations have changed significantly in recent years while the network evening newscasts have remained remarkably stable, according to a new study from the Pew Research Center.

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    The Media and Campaign 2012

    One of the key findings in the new State of the News Media report is that at a time of diminishing reporting resources, many newsmakers, in political, public and corporate life, are finding new ways to get their messages to the public—often with little or no journalistic vetting.

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    Newspapers Turning Ideas into Dollars

    At a time of economic turmoil in the newspaper business, a new Pew Research Center report identifies four dailies that have built successful new revenue streams and answers four key questions. What are these winning business innovations? What challenges did the papers overcome in implementing them? What are the tangible signs of success? And what lessons can be shared with the industry?

Signature Reports

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Pew Research Center illustration for America's News Influencers report; photos via Getty Images

America’s News Influencers

This study explores the makeup of the social media news influencer universe, including who they are, what content they create and who their audiences are.

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