☀️ Happy Thursday! The Briefing updates you on what’s happened and what’s coming in the news and information world – and what our data tells us about it. Not a subscriber yet? Sign up here!
In today’s email:
- Top story: White House sent letter to top news execs urging them to intensify scrutiny of Republicans’ impeachment inquiry
- New from Pew Research Center: TV news fact sheets
- Under the radar: A look at the new Black press
- Looking ahead: X’s lawsuit against California’s content moderation policies
- Chart of the week: How partisans view media scrutiny of those in power
🔥 Top story
The White House sent a letter to top U.S. news executives on Wednesday, urging them to intensify their scrutiny of Republicans’ impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden. Calling the inquiry “based on lies,” White House Counsel’s Office spokesman Ian Sams wrote in the letter that “covering impeachment as a process story – Republicans say X, but the White House says Y – is a disservice to the American public.”
Journalists in the United States differ markedly from the general public in their views of whether journalists should always strive to give equal coverage to all sides of an issue, according to a recent Pew Research Center study. A little more than half of the journalists surveyed (55%) say that every side does not always deserve equal news coverage. By contrast, 22% of Americans overall say the same, whereas about three-quarters (76%) say journalists should always strive to give all sides equal coverage.
🚨 New from Pew Research Center
Our new fact sheets explore the trends in television news across three formats: local TV news, cable TV news, and network TV news.
- In 2022, local TV news audiences remained relatively stable from the previous year. Financially, local TV companies generated more revenue in 2022 than in 2021, consistent with a cyclical pattern in which advertising revenue rises in election years and falls in non-election years.
- On cable TV, both prime-time and daytime cable news audiences increased for Fox News in 2022 but decreased for CNN, MSNBC and Newsmax.
- Audiences for network TV news have remained largely stable in recent years. Financially, advertiser expenditures for the news programs of the three major networks (ABC, CBS and NBC) have declined substantially since 2020.
Explore all the fact sheets from our State of the News Media project.
🕵️ Under the radar
- A look at the new Black press, its use of social media and focus on community
- Hyperlocal weather forecasters are gaining popularity in India
- America’s largest newspaper chain is hiring reporters to exclusively cover Taylor Swift and Beyoncé
- How a nontraditional radio station in Mexico City is expanding to new mediums
- NFL reporter files racial discrimination lawsuit after dismissal
- Press Forward initiative pledges $500 million to support local news
- Florida student paper refuses to run ad for abortion pill access because of state statute
📅 Looking ahead
This week, we look ahead to the lawsuit that X, formerly known as Twitter, filed against California claiming that the state’s new content moderation law violates its free speech rights. The law requires that social media companies publish content moderation policies.
A Center survey conducted earlier this year found that Americans are more likely to say tech companies should take steps to restrict false information and extremely violent content online than they are to support the government doing so. For example, 65% of Americans say tech companies should restrict false information online, while 55% say the U.S. government should do this.
📊 Chart of the week
The White House called for more intensive reporting on House Republicans’ impeachment inquiry on Wednesday. A Pew Research Center survey conducted during the Trump administration in 2019 found broad support for the concept of media scrutiny of those in power, albeit with partisan differences. While 83% of Democrats said it was important for journalists to serve as watchdogs over elected leaders, 61% of Republicans shared this view. And most Republicans (59%) said journalists at the time were going too far in that role.
👋 That’s all for this week.
The Briefing is compiled by Pew Research Center staff, including Naomi Forman-Katz, Jacob Liedke, Sarah Naseer, Christopher St. Aubin and Emily Tomasik. It is edited by Katerina Eva Matsa, Michael Lipka and Mark Jurkowitz, and copy edited by Rebecca Leppert.
Do you like this newsletter? Email us at journalism@pewresearch.org or fill out this two-question survey to tell us what you think.
