Study: Americans use multiple platforms to gather news info, internet on the rise

When it comes to getting their news Americans are becoming more diversified and better equipped.

The recent finding of a study released by the Pew Research Center finds that 92% of the public uses multiple platforms to get their news information each day. Among these platforms are national and local television and newspapers, the internet and radio. Barely less than half (46%) of Americans suggest they operate through four to six media platforms each day and only trace percentages of the population (7%) use but one outlet for their daily news information.

Newspapers and the print media have been forced to deal with the encroaching internet for many years now, but perhaps they are not alone in their dilemma. With 59% of Americans claiming they get at least some of their daily news information online the web has now moved up to the third most popular outlet behind only local and national TV broadcasts. Pegging down exactly where users go on the web is a bit more difficult however. Nearly two-thirds (65%) claim not to have a single favorite news website. One-third of the online crowd meanwhile accesses news regularly from their cell phone.

Mobile technology and social networking have become essential to the surge of the internet in passing both newspapers and news radio. Cell phones as mobile devices allow users to gather news information anywhere and at any time during the day. With 80% of the public now owning a cell phone and 33% of that total using those devices for news, a total of 26% of all Americans get some form of news from their cell phone each day. Participation through social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter have also become responsible in the spreading of news. Eight of ten individuals polled, who use the internet for news, send or receive links to web pages with articles on news topics. 37% meanwhile claim to have contributed to the creation or dissemination of news through personally written articles, blogs, or online commentary.

More than eight out of ten Americans (81%) say they follow news at least “some of the time” and only 38% rely solely on offline sources for their daily news. For those who do use the web the Pew study finds a clear majority (65%) of people are not loyal to any particular news source. Television is still the news leader with 78% gathering their daily information from local sources and 73% relying on national news. 61% say they get some kind of news online, 54% are tuned to their local radio and half (50%) read a daily newspaper.

Tracking the online behavior of Americans shows the weather, being followed by 81% of news seekers on the web, as the number one news topic. National events at 73% are second followed by health and medicine (66%), business and the economy (64%), international events (62%) and science and technology (60%). Three-quarters (75%) of the online public receives news through email and social networking sites and more than half (52%) claim they personally forward web links on news stories to family and friends.

Does quality suffer in the wake of better access? Asked the question of whether “major news organizations do a good job covering all the important news stories and subjects that matter to me”, 63% agree. However 72% of Americans consider news sources to be biased in their coverage. Of course a clear majority of conservatives think their media outlets do a good job in covering the news that is important to them and liberals are similarly supportive when the media “bias” swings in their preferred direction.

The Pew Research study of 1,675 national participants was conducted between December 28th and January 19, 2010.

Add to favorites Examiner Bio Poll: As newspaper circulation dwindles most won't pay to read online

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Charging for online subscriptions probably won’t improve the struggling fortunes for the newspaper industry.

According to a recent Harris survey sampling 2,136 adults online late last year 77% said they would refuse to pay anything for access to a newspaper’s stories on the web. Less than two in ten (19%) would be willing to pay between $1 and $10 a month in readership fees with less than five-percent willing to pay more than $10 per-month for the online service. Those living in the western United States (29%) were most likely to pay for newspaper stories online. In the East that total is just 19%.

Struggling to convince their readers to subscribe online for a fee is a reflection of an overall drop in readership since the early 1980s. The Newspaper Association of America website tracks several figures including newspapers in print and average circulation since 1940. That year there were a record total of 1,878 newspapers in operation. With the U.S. population at little over 130-million the ratio was around one paper for every 70,000 citizens. Furthermore daily circulation totals averaged 41,132. While that’s low even by today’s standards it does indicate that nearly 60% of the population purchased and read newspapers on a daily basis in 1940.

The peak year for circulation came in 1984 when an average of 63,340 Americans purchased newspapers daily. With the population of the United States at around 235-million, or around 24% smaller than today, over 45% of Americans bought papers each day. As of 2008 however newspapers in publication (1,408) had reached their lowest level on record. The average circulation of 48,597 represents the first time newspapers have dropped below the 50,000 mark since 1945. Just over 22% of the total public now pays for their daily news in print (including less than half of adults), half of what it was a quarter-century ago and nearly one-third of its peak total in the early-40s.

In an interesting albeit inevitable twist most newspaper publications have now been forced to court the internet – the same information medium that was the biggest factor in the industry’s decline – in an attempt to generate greater profits and reach more readers. Losing readership is the greatest threat to the life of any newspaper, but concern over the costs to print continues to increase while advertising revenue shrinks. Circulation expenditures reached over $10 billion for the first time in 1997 and have not come close to falling back under that total in the ensuing years.

Back to the Harris survey, just 43% of those surveyed say they read the newspaper each day in either its print or online format. Ten-percent claim they never read a newspaper meanwhile, 72% say they do so once a week and 81% once per-month. Setting a dangerous precedent for the future of the industry fewer people read the newspaper by descending age group. Not surprisingly elders 55+ are the most loyal group of readers with 64% claiming to flip through their paper almost every day. That percentage drops to 44% in the 45-54 year old age group, 36% in the 35-44 age grouping and 23% amongst younger adults aged 18-34.

If the newspaper industry wants to survive collectively in the coming decades it will likely need to convince many young readers to begin picking up their paper more often as they grow older. Charging for online subscriptions or to view individual articles appears to be a difficult undertaking at this point in time. Meanwhile newspapers continue the laborious dig for dollars and advertisers faced with a struggling economy and dwindling readership.