By way of the Internet, Americans today have more public affairs and science-related information available to them than at any time in history. Yet the availability of information does not mean people will use it. Given the many competing alternatives across entertainment, celebrity culture, and other diversionary content, only those Internet users with a very strong preference for public affairs will use the medium for "hard" news on a regular base.
This general pattern of Internet consumption is once again reflected in the just released "Pew State of the News" survey. In the section focusing on "online news," as graphed above, though roughly 70% of Americans say that they have sought news online in the past, only roughly 30% of Americans are regular online news consumers, or "got news online yesterday." In the same survey, 3% of respondents reported reading a "news blog" yesterday.
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I think those numbers are extremely high! How many Americans "seek" news of any kind on a daily basis? That 30% of Americans seek news on a daily basis online to me means that most of the people that look for some news now do it online. Bad news for newspapers since that has to be the majority old source.
The survey also found that the number of people who get their news online stabilized in 2006 at about 92 million people, rather than continuing to rise. Why should this be? The report suggests that the conventional idea of going online -- meaning using a standard computer -- is outmoded, since many people are now getting news and other information on mobile devices. This may not bode well for in-depth, investigative journalism.
Perhaps stabilizing readership, rather than continuing to rise, reflects more news providers restricting access to subscribers and selling site licenses, so more people can't get their news for free. I think the in-depth news sites are moving to this model, rather than open access for all. That may mean investigative journalism survives in a niche.