Despite years of news stories about the troubles of newspapers, and recent research showing that 1,800 (almost all of them weeklies) closed from 2004 to 2015, a strong majority of Americans think that “their local news outlets are doing very or somewhat well financially,” according to polling by the Pew Research Center. Amy Mitchell, Pew’s executive editor of journalism research, in a briefing last week that the industry attempt to educate consumers “seems to largely have gone unheard,” Laura Hazard Owen reports for Nieman Lab at Harvard University. But most people say they get their news from television, and there has been little news about TV finances. Pew says, "A third of those who prefer print think their local news media are not doing well financially."
Pew also found that only 14 percent of American adults "have paid for or given money to local news of any kind — print, digital, public-radio pledge drive, anything — in the past year," Owen reports. "Inside the news industry and Nieman Lab World, the fate of local news stands out as a particularly scary problem. Outside our bubble, however, people aren’t all that worried about it."
The poll surveyed about 35,000 people, which allowed Pew to create an interactive tool "that lets users delve into the local news environments in 99 regions across the U.S.," Owen reports. These are "core-based statistical areas," which omit some exurban counties that are in metro areas, but still include counties with rural populations, and market-to-market comparisons can be interesting. The Rural Blog found some in the two markets with which we're most familiar: Lexington and Louisville.
In the Louisville metro area, which lies partly in Indiana, the six most important news topics for daily life are the weather (66 percent), crime (39%), prices (37%), traffic and transportation (36%), government and politics (25%) and schools (16%). When those who said a topic was important or merely interesting were asked how easy it is to stay informed about it, the "very easy" percentages were: weather 82, sports 54, traffic and transport 47, crime 43, schools 35, jobs and unemployment 25, prices 22, community activities 22, arts and culture 22, restaurants, clubs and bars 21, and government and politics 20. In the nearby Lexington market, that last figure was 44 percent, ranking fifth, just as it did among the importance of topics (in Lexington and nationally). Those disparities suggest that there is more appetite for news of government and politics than many news media in Louisville think. In both markets, TV is the leading news provider, but there's a big difference in pathways; 53 percent in Louisville say they get their news from TV, 20 percent from a news site or app, and 10 percent each from print and social media. In Lexington, social media edge out TV, 29 to 27, and the other pathways are tied at 17 percent.
The poll also asked whether local journalists are in touch with the community, whether local news media have a lot of influence, and if the respondent had spoken with a local journalist. Comparisons of these numbers across markets should be interesting. Questions about news-media performance included accuracy, thoroughness, fairness, transparency about reporting and "keeping an eye on local political leaders." Then the poll asked how well local news media do at keeping them informed of the important stories of the day. Here are the grades for Louisville and Lexington:
The poll surveyed about 35,000 people, which allowed Pew to create an interactive tool "that lets users delve into the local news environments in 99 regions across the U.S.," Owen reports. These are "core-based statistical areas," which omit some exurban counties that are in metro areas, but still include counties with rural populations, and market-to-market comparisons can be interesting. The Rural Blog found some in the two markets with which we're most familiar: Lexington and Louisville.
 |
| Metro areas for which Pew media polling data are available |
The poll also asked whether local journalists are in touch with the community, whether local news media have a lot of influence, and if the respondent had spoken with a local journalist. Comparisons of these numbers across markets should be interesting. Questions about news-media performance included accuracy, thoroughness, fairness, transparency about reporting and "keeping an eye on local political leaders." Then the poll asked how well local news media do at keeping them informed of the important stories of the day. Here are the grades for Louisville and Lexington:
No comments:
Post a Comment