News media preferences -- new survey

[Donna Halper]

At 10:57 PM 1/5/2009, Sean Smyth wrote:

> > Television    59%
> > Internet      59%
> > Newspapers    28%
> > Radio         18%
> > Magazines     4%
> > Other (vol.)  6%
>
>The yikes moment on that list is newspapers outperforming radio as a 
>news source.

Not really.  There seems to be just one radio source that repeatedly 
attracts the news fans of all ages-- NPR, because they do in-depth 
coverage of more than just the same 5 stories over and over.  Even 
many of the so-called "all-news" radio stations have cut back on 
their reporting, such that you don't hear the wide range of stories 
nor extended pieces that explain and offer more than just 30 seconds 
worth of synopsis.  The news junkies today can't find the kind of 
thorough reporting they crave except on NPR, and also, some people 
regard NPR as (gasp) too liberal, so they don't listen.  NPR's 
breakouts last year showed a 65-35 split, with 65% saying they are 
either Democrats or independents, and the rest saying they are 
Republicans.  But anyway, it's true that a lot of the folks who used 
to listen to the radio for news now go to the internet.  What I'm 
surprised at is the 4% for magazines-- this was actually a really 
good year for some news magazines and also for ideologicial and 
special interest magazines.  On the left, the Nation had a very good 
year, and on the right, so did the Weekly Standard.  Among news mags, 
Time showed some gains that they didn't expect -- in a recent survey 
of the most popular magazines, Time was voted the favourite news 
magazine of college students.  The Week magazine also showed gains in 
circulation.  (The most objective news magazine I've ever seen, if 
you are not familiar with The Week.)