Report: TV Remains Leading Source for News in the U.S.

NEW YORK, August 18:
According to a new survey from the Pew Research Center, fewer Americans are
reading newspapers and instead getting their news online, while television
still holds strong as the leading source for news in the U.S.

Pew found that the largest
group of news consumers, 46 percent of those polled, have a “heavy reliance” on
television for their news at all times of the day. This group is also the
oldest, with a median age of 52. Among those who get their news from TV, fewer
are watching the 6:30 p.m. broadcast network newscasts, and are instead opting
for cable news sources.

The group that relies on
the Internet for news, 13 percent, was the youngest demographic, with a median
age of 35. Fewer than half of them reported watching television news on a
regular basis. The percentage of people who said they had read a newspaper the
day before dropped to 34 percent from the 40 percent reported two years ago.

Pew said the results show
an increasing shift toward online news consumption, but that there is now a
sizable group of “more engaged, sophisticated and well-off people” that use
both traditional and online sources to get their news. The Pew researchers
referred to these people as "integrators," and say they account for
23 percent of those surveyed, spending the most time with the news on a typical
day.

"Like web-oriented
news consumers, integrators are affluent and highly educated. However they are
older, on average, than those who consider the Internet their main source of
news," the survey said.

About one-third of those
younger than 25 said they get news on any given day, up from about 25 percent
in 1998.

—By Kristin
Brzoznowski