Americans’ Changing Relationship With Local News
More Americans now prefer to get local news online, while fewer turn to TV or print. And most say local news outlets are important to their community.
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More Americans now prefer to get local news online, while fewer turn to TV or print. And most say local news outlets are important to their community.
A declining share of U.S. adults are following the news closely, and audiences are shrinking for several older types of news media.
The transition of the news industry away from print, television and radio into digital spaces has caused huge disruptions in the traditional news industry, especially the print news industry. Today, an overwhelming majority of Americans get news at least sometimes from digital devices.
Newspapers are a critical part of the American news landscape, but they have been hard hit as more and more Americans consume news digitally.
In 2021, 11% of high-circulation newspapers experienced layoffs, compared with three times that share the year before (33%).
Local newspapers have been hit particularly hard by the transition to digital news consumption in recent years, with many forced to shutter their doors permanently.
While newspapers have seen steep job losses from 2008 to 2020, digital-native news organizations have seen considerable gains.
Among the six publicly traded newspaper companies studied, second-quarter advertising revenue fell by a median of 42% year over year.
Though this figure is a sliver of all PPP loans lent out to small businesses as of August, it represents a large segment of U.S. newspaper companies.
Mergers, closures and layoffs have affected many media organizations. Here are 10 charts on the state of newsroom employment in the U.S. today.
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