The New York Times highlighted a Pew media study today on the American news diet. Below are two noteworthy bites from the article:
Television is the most common medium for local news, with 71 percent of people watching for local information at least once a week, according to a survey of 2,251 adults. The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus two percentage points. But younger adults “rely on local television less,” and more on the Internet, the report says, “a fact that suggests more vulnerability for the medium in the future.”
The survey found that 50 percent of people read newspapers or their Web sites for local information at least once a week. People tend to get a much wider array of information from newspapers than from television — yet 69 percent of those surveyed also said they believed that the death of their local paper would have at most a minor impact on their news diet. Younger adults, the report states, “were especially unconcerned.”
The report also questions the future of our news media consumption. “If television has focused on covering weather, traffic, and breaking news, and that is what people look to this platform for, will television begin to cover taxes and zoning and education if the local newspaper no longer exists?”
Most t.v. stations get a lot of their news from the newspapers. Without in-depth written journalism in some form, objective, thorough and accurate information will be scarce.