Daily Online News Use Is Up But Still Small: Pew
This story was written by Staci D. Kramer.
The latest Pew biennial news consumption survey is out and, as usual, the results offer something to latch on to for just about everyone with a stake. TV news ratings are declining? Yes, but even heavy internet users turn to TV as their main news source. Newspaper readership is still dropping? Yes, but it's mostly print-only readers and did you notice that online readers are helping stem the tide? If you have a few spare hours, you can read the full study here. Or you can graze here:
-- Daily online news use is up by a third since 2006 but the numbers are still small25 percent now, compared with 18 percent then. The number of people who get news online at least three days a week roughly equals the numbers who watch cable news.
-- Fifteen percent say they have smart phones; 37 percent of those use them for news.
More, including chart, after the jump
-- More people get news online than watch nightly news37 percent to 29 percent.
-- Only 10 percent of those surveyed who have social networking profiles say they regularly get news from those networks. 65 percent aged 18-24 have a profile; that number is sliced in half for the early 30s set.
-- 44 percent of college graduates surveyed say they get news online every day compared with 11 percent of those with a high school education or less.
-- Only 10 percent of the public reads news and political blogs regularly. That compares to 26 percent of the group Pew dubs Net-Newsers those who rely on online for news and infoand nearly 20 percent of the Integrators who get there news from a blend of traditional and online.
-- Once they are online, 22 percent overall say they have personalized news pages; that doubles for the heaviest users. One-half of online users watch news programs or video clips. And they are using search engines more frequently to look for news while only 5 percent say they use news-ranking sites like Digg. 12 percent use an RSS reader; 25 percent get email news or alerts.
The report is based on phone calls with 3,615 U.S. adults with a plus/minus error margin of 2.
By Staci D. Kramer