Kids these days
Here’s how some of the kids I know are getting their news these days. This highly scientific study was based on responses I received to an e-mail sent to some friends. It’s intended as a rough indicator of the everyday news consumption practices of people I know. These are the main counts, Harpers-style (full results in the table, below):
- 32 people were asked for their top three news sources
- 95 total news sources were indicated
- 51 of them are web (all free, as far as I know)
- 17 are tv
- 16 are radio
- 5 are conversation-based, and
- 9 are print, of which:
- three are free (YDN, Middletown Press, UK Metro)
- six cost money (Les Echos, “various magazines,” Courier Mail, Hartford Courant, Boston Globe and New Yorker)
Of the six paid news sources, three of them are someone’s primary source (Les Echos, various mags, and the Courant). One of those is a French newspaper, and another the available magazines in my friend’s break room. This means that one of my friends (out of 31 who responded) pays for their primary source of news, and only five people out of 32 pay for any of their top three news sources, none of which have a revenue stream that is Internet-based.
What does this mean? Among my friends news is important, but paying for it directly—in the sense of buying bread and milk—is not. (Of course, people in the group I asked might be paying for something, such as a monthly cable bill or donations to a radio station.) The dominant medium for news is the Internet and its ascendent form is the web, as opposed to e-mail, newsgroups or RSS. And people tend to get their news from a variety of media. The variety aspect is probably not new, and I suspect newspapers would have dominated in a poll like this twenty years ago the way that the web does now. But these days my friends aren’t spending much time turning pages.
One of my friends works for a newspaper and seems to think his current job is not long for this world. It’s hard to watch what is happening to newspapers as they decline, and much harder still to be a part of it. This is all anecdotal, but some things are now obvious: technological change has rendered the businesses built on the previous system obsolete. Clay Shirky’s magnificent essay has become the canonical statement.
Good luck with the micropayments, Rupert.
| Indivdual | Main source | Second source | Third source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Adrian | BBC News (rss) | The Daily Show and The Colbert Report (tv) | Facebook and Twitter (web) |
| Amy | NPR (radio) | New York Times (web) | Bill (conversation) |
| Anne | Google News (web) | New York Times (web) | NPR (radio) |
| Becky | Les Echos (print) | TF1 et France 2 (tv) | CNN Europe (tv) |
| Ben | ABC News (rss) | BBC News (rss) | various tech news (rss) |
| Brian | Yahoo! News and New York Times (web) | NPR (radio) | various blogs (rss) |
| Bryce | ABC News (web) | New Scientist (web) | The Onion (web) |
| Chris | NPR (radio) | The Daily Show (tv) | PBS (tv) |
| Dan | Jody (conversation) | Adrian (conversation) | ABC RN (radio) |
| Doug | NPR (radio) | The Today Show (tv) | Google News (web) |
| Edward | SBS (tv) | ABC (tv) | ABC RN (radio) |
| Elena | NPR (radio) | Yale Daily News (print) | New York Times (web) |
| Geoff | Channel Nine News (tv) | The Courier Mail (print) | various Internet sources (web, e-mail) |
| Izzi | WNPR and WESU (radio) | Middletown Press and Hartford Courant (print) | Middletown Eye (web) |
| Jahn | various magazines (print) | Channel 7 news (tv) | ABC News (web) |
| Jenny | AP (rss) | Howard Stern (web) | NPR (radio) and classroom (conversation) |
| Jody | Twitter (web) | The Courier Mail (web) | Australian Financial Review (web) |
| Julia | New York Times (web) | NPR (web) | The Daily Show and The Colbert Report (web) |
| Kezam | NPR (radio) | Young Turks (web) | n/a |
| Kris | ABC RN (radio) | Feministing (web) | ABC News (web) |
| Lydia | New York Times (web) | Google News (rss) | Gawker (web) |
| Marcy | New York Times (web) | The Today Show (tv) | People and Facebook (web) |
| Mary | MSNBC (tv) | Politico (web) | NPR (radio) |
| Michael | various politics sites (rss) | NPR (radio) | Facebook (web) |
| Murray | google.com/news (web) | news.yahoo.com (web) | various online discussion forums (web) |
| Natalie | BBC (tv) | UK Metro (print) | Sydney Morning Herald (web) |
| Olivia | Hartford Courant (print) | Channel 8 News (tv) | colleagues (conversation) and Twitter (web) |
| Sally | NPR (radio) | Boston Globe (print) | WMUR (tv) |
| Sari | Sky News (tv) | NYTimes iPhone app (web/mobile) | PRI iPhone app (web/mobile) |
| Scott | New York Times (web) | Washington Post (web) | Boston Globe (web) |
| Tim | New York Times (web) | Rachel Maddow Show (tv) | Reddit (web) |
| Yve | New York Times (web) | NPR (radio) | Google News (web) and New Yorker (print) |