State of the News Media methodology

The State of the News Media fact sheets use a range of different methodologies to study the health of the U.S. news industry, including custom analysis of news audience behavior, secondary analysis of industry data and direct reporting to solicit information unavailable elsewhere.

State of the News Media industry data

The State of the News Media fact sheets consist of data originally generated by other individuals or organizations that Pew Research Center then collected and aggregated.

For the data aggregated from other researchers, Pew Research Center’s team took several steps. First, Center researchers tried to determine what data had been collected for the media sectors studied and by whom for the media sectors studied. In many cases, this included securing rights to data through licensing fees or other means, and often included paying for use of the data.

Next, researchers studied the data closely to determine where elements reinforced each other and where there were apparent contradictions or gaps. In doing so, Pew Research Center endeavored to determine the value and validity of each dataset. That, in many cases, involved going back to the sources that collected the data in the first place. Where there were conflicts, the Center included all relevant sources and tried to explain their differences, either in chart notes or in the text.

All sources are cited in chart and graphic notes or within the text of the report. Some data providers may update data for past and future years on an annual basis.

Analysis of Comscore television audience data

In 2018, Pew Research Center began using data from Comscore StationView Essentials® and TV Essentials® for our TV news audience analysis, and, as such, the current fact sheets include figures from 2016 onward. Local TV news audience data is from Comscore StationView Essentials®, while cable and network TV audience data is from Comscore TV Essentials®.

Earlier versions of the three TV fact sheets included data stretching back to 2007 and used data from Nielsen Media Research. That data is available in the 2017 archived fact sheets. Because of differences between the two sets of data points, figures from prior years are not directly comparable with the Comscore data shown here.

Analysis of Comscore digital audience data

In order to provide as clear a sense as possible of the digital audience data of U.S. news organizations, researchers took several steps using digital audience measurement data from Comscore, a cross-platform measurement company.

After the initial selection process, each Comscore entry representing an outlet or website (“entity”) was individually vetted by researchers and unusual shifts in data over time were checked with Comscore analysts. Using feedback from analysts, entities that registered increases or declines in unique visitors over the time period studied (October to December of each year) that were likely due to inorganic changes in measurement or site structure were considered to not have data that could be trended and were removed from the analysis.

For all outlets, entities that are representative of an entire web domain (“total domain entities”) were used whenever possible. When domain entities were incomplete – i.e., when they did not represent traffic to an entire web domain – custom entities that represent the total domain were used when available. Multiple entities of the same URL that were the result of a structure change in the Comscore database over time were considered comparable. Researchers consulted Comscore analysts throughout the entity selection process.

Selection

Newspapers: Researchers first assembled a list of the top 49 newspapers by average Sunday circulation for Q3 2015, Q3 2016, Q3 2017, Q3 2018, Q3 2019, and the six-month period ending Sept. 30 for 2020, 2021 and 2022, according to the Alliance for Audited Media data. The Wall Street Journal was then added to the list, as it is one of the largest papers in the U.S., but does not have a Sunday edition, to produce a list of the top 50 newspapers by circulation. Each was matched with its associated total-domain entities in Comscore. Researchers then analyzed the Comscore data for October, November and December in each year. The following 50 entities were used in 2022:

ABQJOURNAL.COM

 AJC.COM

 AZCENTRAL.COM

 BALTIMORESUN.COM

 BOSTONGLOBE.COM

 BUFFALONEWS.COM

 CHICAGOTRIBUNE.COM

 CHRON.COM

 CLEVELAND.COM

 DALLASNEWS.COM

 DENVERPOST.COM

 ELNUEVODIA.COM

 FREEP.COM

 INQUIRER.COM

 JSONLINE.COM

 KANSASCITY.COM

 LANCASTERONLINE.COM

 LATIMES.COM

 MCALL.COM

 MERCURYNEWS.COM

 MIAMIHERALD.COM

 MYSANANTONIO.COM

 NEWSDAY.COM

 NEWSOBSERVER.COM

 NJ.COM

 NWAONLINE.COM

 NYDAILYNEWS.COM

 NYPOST.COM

 NYTIMES.COM

 OCREGISTER.COM

 OMAHA.COM

 OREGONLIVE.COM

 ORLANDOSENTINEL.COM

 PILOTONLINE.COM

 REVIEWJOURNAL.COM

 RICHMOND.COM

 SACBEE.COM

 SANDIEGOUNIONTRIBUNE.COM

 SEATTLETIMES.COM

 SFCHRONICLE.COM

 STARADVERTISER.COM

 STARTRIBUNE.COM

 SUN-SENTINEL.COM

 SUNTIMES.COM

 SYRACUSE.COM

 TAMPABAY.COM

 TIMESUNION.COM

 TWINCITIES.COM

 WASHINGTONPOST.COM

 WSJ.COM

News outlets: Researchers assessed all domains from 11 Comscore categories (Business to Business, Directories/Resources, Entertainment, Games, Lifestyles, Multi-Category, News/Information, Services, Social Media, Sports and Technology) with at least 10 million average monthly unique digital visitors in the fourth quarter of 2022. From that set of entities, they then selected news outlets using the following criteria:

1. It is a publisher of original content about news, defined as current events affecting public life (can include both original reporting and commentary/analysis). Sites are judged by an assessment of the material appearing on their homepage. A review of top stories on the homepage must render some evidence of original reporting, such as interviews, eyewitness accounts or referral to source documents, by a dedicated reporter/editorial staff. Sites are also judged as news publishers if they self-describe as an organization that produces news, either in the subject headers/navigation bar and/or in their “about” or advertising section through usage of terms like “news,” “journalism,” “covering” or “informing.”
2. It is not entirely focused on reviews, advice, recipes or unedited raw data.
3. It is not primarily a user-generated or aggregated content platform (such as Medium, Reddit or Wikipedia). Branded content such as NBA.com was also excluded.

The following 105 entities were used for 2022 and 2021:

247SPORTS.COM
AARP.ORG
ABCNEWS.COM
APNEWS.COM
AXIOS.COM
BBC.COM
BESTLIFEONLINE.COM
BLAVITY.COM
BLEACHERREPORT.COM
BLOOMBERG.COM
BONAPPETIT.COM
BOREDPANDA.COM
BUSINESSINSIDER.COM
BUSTLE.COM
BUZZFEED.COM
BUZZFEEDNEWS.COM
CBSNEWS.COM
CBSSPORTS.COM
CNBC.COM
CNET.COM
CNN.COM
COMICBOOK.COM
COMPLEX.COM
COSMOPOLITAN.COM
DAILYMAIL.CO.UK
DEADLINE.COM
DIGITALTRENDS.COM
EATER.COM
ELITEDAILY.COM
ELLE.COM
ENTREPRENEUR.COM
EONLINE.COM
ESPN.COM
ESQUIRE.COM
ESSENTIALLYSPORTS.COM
EW.COM
FORBES.COM
FORTUNE.COM
FOXBUSINESS.COM
FOXNEWS.COM
GAMESPOT.COM
GENIUS.COM
GLAMOUR.COM
GOODMORNINGAMERICA.COM
GQ.COM
HEAVY.COM
HOLLYWOODREPORTER.COM
HUFFPOST.COM
IGN.COM
INDEPENDENT.CO.UK
INSIDER.COM
INSTYLE.COM
INVERSE.COM
INVESTOPEDIA.COM
LATIMES.COM
MARCA.COM
MARKETWATCH.COM
MASHABLE.COM
MAXPREPS.COM
MIAMIHERALD.COM
MIRROR.CO.UK
NBCNEWS.COM
NBCSPORTS.COM
NEWSWEEK.COM
NJ.COM
NPR.ORG
NYMAG.COM
NYPOST.COM
NYTIMES.COM
PAGESIX.COM
PATCH.COM
PBS.ORG
PEOPLE.COM
POLITICO.COM
POPSUGAR.COM
REUTERS.COM
ROLLINGSTONE.COM
SCREENRANT.COM
SFGATE.COM
SHEKNOWS.COM
SI.COM
SPORTSKEEDA.COM
STYLECASTER.COM
TELEMUNDO.COM
THE-SUN.COM
THEATLANTIC.COM
THEDAILYBEAST.COM
THEGUARDIAN.COM
THEHILL.COM
THEVERGE.COM
TIME.COM
TMZ.COM
TODAY.COM
TOMSGUIDE.COM
USATODAY.COM
USMAGAZINE.COM
USNEWS.COM
VANITYFAIR.COM
VARIETY.COM
VICE.COM
VOGUE.COM
VOX.COM
WASHINGTONPOST.COM
WIRED.COM
WSJ.COM

2019/2020

The following 97 entities were used for 2019 and 2020:

247SPORTS.COM
ABCNEWS.COM
AL.COM
APNEWS.COM
AXIOS.COM
BBC.COM / BBC.CO.UK
BGR.COM
BIZJOURNALS.COM
BLEACHERREPORT.COM
BLOOMBERG.COM
BUSINESSINSIDER.COM
BUSTLE.COM
BUZZFEED.COM
BUZZFEEDNEWS.COM
CBS.COM
CBSLOCAL.COM
CBSNEWS.COM
CHICAGOTRIBUNE.CO
CHRON.COM
CNBC.COM
CNET.COM
CNN.COM
COMPLEX.COM
DAILYMAIL.CO.UKEATER.COM
ELITEDAILY.COM
ESPN.COM
ESQUIRE.COM
FIVETHIRTYEIGHT.COM
FORBES.COM
FOXBUSINESS.COM
FOXNEWS.COM
FREEP.COM
GAMESPOT.COM
GIZMODO.COM
GOODMORNINGAMERICA.COM
HOLLYWOODLIFE.COM
HOLLYWOODREPORTER.COM
HUFFPOST.COM
IGN.COM
INC.COM
INDEPENDENT.CO.UK
INSIDER.COM
INSTYLE.COM
INVERSE.COM
INVESTOPEDIA.COM
LATIMES.COM
LIVESCIENCE.COM
MARIECLAIRE.COM
MARKETWATCH.COM
MASHABLE.COM
MERCURYNEWS.COM
MIRROR.CO.UK
MLIVE.COM
MSNBC.COM
NBCNEWS.COM
NBCSPORTS.COM
NEWSWEEK.COM
NEWYORKER.COM
NJ.COM
NPR.ORG
NYDAILYNEWS.COM
NYMAG.COM
NYPOST.COM
NYTIMES.COM
PATCH.COM
POLITICO.COM
POLYGON.COM
POPCULTURE.COM
POPSUGAR.COM
REFINERY29.COM
REUTERS.COM
SCREENRANT.COM
SFGATE.COM
SLATE.COM
TECHRADAR.COM
THEATLANTIC.COM
THEDAILYBEAST.COM
THEGUARDIAN.COM
THEHILL.COM
THESUN.CO.UK
THEVERGE.COM
TIME.COM
TMZ.COM
TODAY.COM
TOMSGUIDE.COM
UPROXX.COM
USATODAY.COM
USNEWS.COM
VANITYFAIR.COM
VARIETY.COM
VICE.COM
VOX.COM
WASHINGTONEXAMINER.COM
WASHINGTONPOST.COM
WIRED.COM
WSJ.COM

Analysis

For each website, minutes per visit and unique visitors for October to December of each year come from the Comscore Media Metrix® Multi-Platform U.S. database for Total Digital Population.

Comparisons year over year are between monthly averages of October to December data in each year.

For sites that didn’t meet the reporting threshold for one month out of a quarter, researchers averaged the two months for which data was available.

News outlet digital audit

Researchers studied several outreach avenues that digital news outlet could take to engage with their audiences. For mobile apps, researchers searched the Google Play and iOS App Store for official apps from each outlet. For newsletters, researchers searched each outlet’s site for a sign-up form. For Apple News, researchers searched the Apple News app for official channels for the outlet. For Flipboard, researchers searched the Flipboard app and website for official pages for the outlet. For podcasts, researchers searched the iTunes podcast store for podcasts from the outlet and performed a search on each outlet’s site. An outlet was determined to support comments if at least one of the first five stories on its homepage supported comments at the time of analysis. For social media outreach, researchers searched for official pages, accounts or channels for the outlet on each platform, as well as on the outlet’s primary website.

Digital economic analysis

Economics data for the digital fact sheet comes from eMarketer’s U.S. Ad Spending estimates. Data from previous years is updated annually. For 2017 and 2018, eMarketer adjusted its format definitions, substantially changing the way the categories were structured. Because of these changes, data from 2016 and earlier is not included in this report but can be found in archived versions of the fact sheets.

Acknowledgments

Pew Research Center is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts, its primary funder. This is the latest report in Pew Research Center’s ongoing investigation of the state of news, information and journalism in the digital age, a research program funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts, with generous support from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

The state of the news media fact sheets are the product of decades of work by current and former Pew Research Center staff members. For the current batch of fact sheets, assistance in data analysis was provided by Elisa Shearer, Sarah Naseer and Christopher St. Aubin. Sara Atske and Kaitlyn Radde provided web producing and graphic support, and David Kent provided copy editing support, while Sogand Afkari and Andrew Grant provided communication support.