Overview: Key News Audiences Now Blend Online and Traditional Sources

The latest Pew report:

Since 2006, the proportion of Americans who say they get news online
at least three days a week has increased from 31% to 37%. About as many
people now say they go online for news regularly (at least three days a
week) as say they regularly watch cable news (39%); substantially more
people regularly get news online than regularly watch one of the
nightly network news broadcasts (37% vs. 29%).

Since 2006, daily online news use has increased by about a third,
from 18% to 25%. However, as the online news audience grows, the
educational divide in online news use – evident since the internet’s
early days in the mid-1990s – also is increasing. Currently, 44% of
college graduates say they get news online every day, compared with
just 11% of those with a high school education or less.

Net-Newsers and Integrators take advantage of a range of web
features to get the news. Roughly four-in-ten (39%) Net-Newsers – and
about a third of Integrators (32%) – have gotten a news story emailed
to them in the past week. And while 30% of Net-Newsers regularly watch
news online, 19% regularly listen to news on the web.

Net-Newsers and Integrators also rely on news and political blogs as
a part of their news diet. Roughly a quarter of Net-Newsers (26%) and
somewhat fewer Integrators (19%) say they regularly read blogs on
politics or current events. Overall, only 10% of the public regularly
reads political and news blogs.

Other tidbits…

• ” Integrators, who get the news from both traditional
  sources and the internet, are a more engaged, sophisticated and
  demographically sought-after audience segment than those who mostly
  rely on traditional news sources. Integrators share some
  characteristics with a smaller, younger, more internet savvy audience
  segment – Net-Newsers – who principally turn to the web for news, and largely eschew traditional sources. “
• “Most of the loss in [newspaper] readership since 2006 has come among those who read
  the print newspaper; just 27% say they read only the print version of a
  daily newspaper yesterday, down from 34% in 2006.”
• “About a third of those younger than 25 (34%) say they get no news on a typical day, up from 25% in 1998.”