Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World

News Habits & Media

fact sheet
Pew Research Center photo illustration.

Local News Fact Sheet

The landscape of local news in the U.S. has changed significantly in recent decades as Americans have been turning away from print and television and toward digital media. In 2025, 21% of Americans say they follow local news very closely, down from 37% in 2016.

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    More Following ’Fiscal Cliff’ Debate than Petraeus Investigation

    Overview In a busy news week, more Americans say they followed the debate over the “fiscal cliff” very closely than the investigations into the Libya embassy attack, renewed violence in the Middle East or the FBI investigation that led to David Petraeus’s resignation as CIA Director after it found he was having an extra-marital affair. […]

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    About the Survey

    The analysis in this report is based on telephone interviews conducted November 15-18, 2012 among a national sample of 1,002 adults 18 years of age or older living in the continental United States (601 respondents were interviewed on a landline telephone, and 401 were interviewed on a cell phone, including 189 who had no landline […]

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    More Interest in Hurricane Sandy than Election

    Overview Just over half of the public (53%) say they followed news about Hurricane Sandy and the storm’s impact very closely last week, outpacing interest in the 2012 presidential election (47% very closely) and news about the U.S. economy (38% very closely). The latest national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & […]

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    Republicans Increasingly Positive About Campaign

    Overview Republicans express increasingly positive opinions about the presidential campaign and are now about as likely as Democrats to view the campaign as interesting and informative. In early September, shortly after the party conventions, far more Democrats than Republicans said the campaign was interesting and informative. The new survey by the Pew Research Center for […]

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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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