Death of the media: Many Americans Wouldn’t Care if Local Papers Folded (Pew Research Poll)
As many newspapers struggle to stay economically viable, fewer than half of Americans (43%) say that losing their local newspaper would hurt civic life in their community “a lot.” Even fewer (33%) say they would personally miss reading the local newspaper a lot if it were no longer available.
Not unexpectedly, those who get local news regularly from newspapers are much more likely than those who read them less often to see the potential shutdown of a local paper as a significant loss. More than half of regular newspaper readers (56%) say that if the local newspaper they read most often no longer published — either in print or online — it would hurt the civic life of the community a lot; an almost identical percentage (55%) says they would personally miss reading the paper a lot if it were no longer available.
The latest weekly News Interest Index, conducted March 6-9 by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, finds that the public is continuing to pay close attention to news about the economic crisis and President Obama’s agenda. About a quarter (26%) say the unveiling of Obama’s plan to set aside $630 billion toward overhauling the U.S. health care system was the story they followed most closely last week. Nearly one-in-five (18% each) say their top story was the rising unemployment rate or the major drops in the stock market.
The economic crisis continued to dominate news coverage as well. When the ongoing story lines are combined, crisis coverage accounted for 43% of the total newshole, according to a separate analysis by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ).
The political skirmish over Rush Limbaugh’s role in the Republican Party accounted for 8% of the newshole, making it the second most reported story of the week. But the GOP story appears to have registered less with the public; only 4% say it was the story they followed most closely. Newspapers’ Struggles
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The “study” conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press”, was:
–originally published in August of 2008, making this old news
–a study “based on telephone interviews conducted April 30 to June 1, 2008 among a nationwide sample of 3,615 adults, 18 years of age, or older.”
Only 3,615 people? Is that a fair representation of America?
Check it out: http://people-press.org/report/444/news-media