News media preferences -- new survey

[Garrett Wollman]

The generally reliable Pew Research Center for the People and the
Press has released a new survey showing what media Americans look to
for news.  When 18- to 29-year-olds were asked to name their two main
sources of news, the results looked quite bad for traditional media:

Television	59%
Internet	59%
Newspapers	28%
Radio		18%
Magazines	 4%
Other (vol.)	 6%

Unfortunately, the margin of sampling error is not given for this
crosstab.  One bright spot: radio is up compared to both 2006 (+2%)
and 2007 (+5%).

For the whole sample (N = 1489, in the field December 3-7, 2008):

Television	70%
Internet	40%
Newspapers	35%
Radio		18%
Magazines	 5%
Other (vol.)	 2%
DK/Refused	 1%

Interesting that the choice of radio in the rising-adult demo is
reflecting of the population as a whole, which suggests that radio
news doesn't actually have a "generation gap".

Those who answered "television" were asked a follow-up question to
identify their TV news preference.  (Multiple answers accepted.)

CNN		22%
FNC		16%
Local TV news	15%
NBC network	13%
ABC network	11%
CBS network	 9%
MSNBC		 7%
Other (vol.)	 3%
DK/Refused	 2%

I'm not sure what's more surprising, that the networks still have so
much of the news audience, or that that many people actually watch
CNN.  (I'd be interested in a more-detailed survey that elicited which
specific programs people claimed they were watching, to see how many
of the people reporting a cable channel as a news source were actually
watching that channel's news programming.  If any of them still do
hard news at all....)

Full details:
<http://people-press.org/report/479/internet-overtakes-newspapers-as-news-outlet>

-GAWollman