Internet surges as source for news in US (Pew study)

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The Internet is increasingly becoming a primary source of news for Americans with high-speed broadband connections in their homes, according to a survey by the Pew Research Center.

In results that underscore a major shift in the US news industry, the study found that the Internet has well outpaced traditional local and national newspapers in informing adults in the country.

The study, carried out last December by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, found that 70 percent of adult Americans now have access to the Internet, and half of those -- 74 million people -- have a home broadband connection.

It found that while television still ranks first as a source of news among broadband users, the Internet is catching up.

When asked where they got their news "yesterday", 57 percent of the 3,011 respondents included local television among their sources, 49 percent included national television, 49 percent included radio and 43 percent included the Internet.

By comparison, only 38 percent said they had read a local newspaper, and 17 percent, a national paper.

Among the more intense home users of the Internet, who account for 40 percent of all home broadband customers, 71 percent said they had used online sources for news, while 59 percent cited local television, 53 percent mentioned radio and 52 percent cited national television newscasts.

Meanwhile, of these so-called "high-powered users", Pew reported that 43 percent mentioned a local newspaper as a news source, and 21 percent, a national paper.

The study noted that broadband users under 36 are somewhat more likely than older Web surfers to use their home Internet for news but that, for people over 50, as many as 43 percent are going online for news.

However, the survey said that key sources of online news remain the websites of national television networks such as CNN and MSNBC. More than half of home broadband users and 46 percent of both broadband and slower dial-up users mentioned these websites as news sources.

But 36 percent of broadband users also check the local newspaper's website, and 24 percent look at national papers' websites.

Just as noteworthy was the rise of foreign and non-traditional news sources for high-speed home Web users. One-quarter get their news from such sources, like the Al-Jazeera and British Broadcasting Corp (BBC) websites, and, to a lesser extent, websites which aggregate news like the conservative Newsmax.com and the liberal Alternet.com.

While the Internet has brought traffic to newspapers' websites even as readers cut back on physical paper consumption, the study found that there is a limit to surfers' desire for online news access.

More than half of those polled -- 54 percent -- have undergone the sometimes troublesome registration process at news websites, but only six percent have paid for news content.

Uh... this is a misleading survey. "The internet" is not necessarily a source.

An online article from a tv network, a newspaper, a blog, or a web based news agency are "sources".

"Where?" "The Internet" is akin to "Where?" "The Library". Both have newspapers, magazines, and assorted journals.

The medium is not particularly important.

Someone who reads articles from different newspapers online is more likely to read the same event sourced by different writers in the same span of time. If you go thumbing through (non index "fresh" papers) it'll take you awhile. And those foreign editions may not arrive for a week (in which case the reports are out of date).

There was a time when newspapers were openly biased. Nearly every town of size had at least two papers.. One a Democrat paper and one a Republican paper. Both were openly biased. But by reading both one could discern the truth.

Then came radio and TV and newspapers started their long and slow downhill slide. Papers consolidated. And the combined paper claimed to be politically neutral, but almost never was. Reporters are drawn to cover government the way sportscaster are drawn to cover sports. Sportscasters are sports fans first. Newscasters are government fans first.

So papers became increasingly biased. Since in the early days of Radio and TV the "printed press" did not consider broadcasters as real reporters. Radio and TV tended to hire reporters with a background in print.

The reason that Walter Cronkite always refers to himself as first and foremost a print reporter, is so he can avoid what he sees as the bias against broadcast reporters.

That is why so many broadcast reporters mimic the New York Times.. they are trying to get the acceptance of the print media.

But now there is a new game in town.. cheap bandwidth that can reach a large audience. Nearly everyone with an opinion can get his views on the web. The size of the audience for that web posting depends a lot on how many readers agree with the postings.

So we are back to the early days in this nation when any one with a cheap printing press and few reams of paper could publish a newspaper. That was when freedom of the press really meant something.

The INTERNET is allowing those days to return. The days of the unchallenged bias of the broadcast and print media are nearly over.

Their main problem, as Dan Rather proved, they do not know that they can't get away with lies and untruths.

The days of the main stream media are over. The days of the citizen reporter have returned.

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