I ain't got time to read!
Wednesday, Apr. 27 2005 @ 3:22PM
Just give me the numbers, would ya?
The death rattle of mainstream media hasn't reached deafening levels quite yet, though recent studies showing the steady decline in viewership/readership of the blogosphere's main target (the maligned "MSM") is causing bloggers to run victory laps around their laptops. According to a recent study published in the Wilson Quarterly (via Buzzmachine), daily newspaper circulation dropped from 62.3 million in 1990 to 55.2 million in 2003. Young people, apparently, are yawning over the content or have jumped ship for the internet: Thirty-nine percent of 30-49 year olds claimed they read a paper yesterday, while only 23 percent of 18-29 year olds put their nose in a paper.
The current edition of the Carnegie Reporter reveals that between 1997 and 2000, the percentage of 18-24 year olds who say they read yesterday's paper dropped by 14 percent. This could be why the Pioneer Press, whose daily circulation reached an all-time low of 186,635 in 2002, abandoned its quest to convert the coveted and increasingly disinterested young adult market into daily readers and instead is charging after married women by offering, among other things like lifestyle stories, companies more opportunities to advertise. It's a known fact, after all, that when companies have more opportunities to smother them with advertising, all women celebrate by reading newspapers and throwing catered Pampered Chef parties. Let's open the windows so we can hear the constant clamor of advertising coming from outside! Yea!
Yet if readers are leaving behind newspapers in record numbers, it's not because they no longer trust journalists, as much as bloggers would like to believe that's the case. In a study recently released by the Missouri School of Journalism's Center for Advanced Social Research, 62 percent of people surveyed believe journalists are credible, though 74 percent say journalists favor one side when covering politics. (Couldn't the real problem of mainstream media be that journalists are forced to "pretend" that they don't have an opinion for the sake of standards that no longer apply?)
Part of the appeal of blogs, aside from offering instantaneous news and commentary, is that most of the writers aren't shy about their affiliations or motivations. (And as we know, some of them are so closely tied to certain parties that they've actually been paid to blog.) While there are no numbers to show how much time 18-34 year olds are reading blogs for news, the same study in the Carnegie Reporter says that 18-34 year olds spend 130 minutes a week reading online news. Still, that doesn't mean offering more online content is the cure for ailing daily papers: Twenty-one percent of 18-29 year olds admit to getting their news from the Daily Show or Saturday Night Live. And really, if porn qualifies as "internet news," then Paris Hilton talking about current events (losing her dog is "news," after all) on Saturday Night Live is, like, totally investigative reporting and stuff.
The death rattle of mainstream media hasn't reached deafening levels quite yet, though recent studies showing the steady decline in viewership/readership of the blogosphere's main target (the maligned "MSM") is causing bloggers to run victory laps around their laptops. According to a recent study published in the Wilson Quarterly (via Buzzmachine), daily newspaper circulation dropped from 62.3 million in 1990 to 55.2 million in 2003. Young people, apparently, are yawning over the content or have jumped ship for the internet: Thirty-nine percent of 30-49 year olds claimed they read a paper yesterday, while only 23 percent of 18-29 year olds put their nose in a paper.
The current edition of the Carnegie Reporter reveals that between 1997 and 2000, the percentage of 18-24 year olds who say they read yesterday's paper dropped by 14 percent. This could be why the Pioneer Press, whose daily circulation reached an all-time low of 186,635 in 2002, abandoned its quest to convert the coveted and increasingly disinterested young adult market into daily readers and instead is charging after married women by offering, among other things like lifestyle stories, companies more opportunities to advertise. It's a known fact, after all, that when companies have more opportunities to smother them with advertising, all women celebrate by reading newspapers and throwing catered Pampered Chef parties. Let's open the windows so we can hear the constant clamor of advertising coming from outside! Yea!
Yet if readers are leaving behind newspapers in record numbers, it's not because they no longer trust journalists, as much as bloggers would like to believe that's the case. In a study recently released by the Missouri School of Journalism's Center for Advanced Social Research, 62 percent of people surveyed believe journalists are credible, though 74 percent say journalists favor one side when covering politics. (Couldn't the real problem of mainstream media be that journalists are forced to "pretend" that they don't have an opinion for the sake of standards that no longer apply?)
Part of the appeal of blogs, aside from offering instantaneous news and commentary, is that most of the writers aren't shy about their affiliations or motivations. (And as we know, some of them are so closely tied to certain parties that they've actually been paid to blog.) While there are no numbers to show how much time 18-34 year olds are reading blogs for news, the same study in the Carnegie Reporter says that 18-34 year olds spend 130 minutes a week reading online news. Still, that doesn't mean offering more online content is the cure for ailing daily papers: Twenty-one percent of 18-29 year olds admit to getting their news from the Daily Show or Saturday Night Live. And really, if porn qualifies as "internet news," then Paris Hilton talking about current events (losing her dog is "news," after all) on Saturday Night Live is, like, totally investigative reporting and stuff.
