Reading the article, I was mostly intrigued by the idea that 27% of the population are turning to their smartphones for news. Let me be clear, I teach technology, so the idea that people were looking no further than the palm of their hands for news was not actually news. I was struck by this idea because I am guilty of it myself.
My daughter does karate and flute lessons. That means that I find myself sitting in more than a few lobbies while she is mastering the art of one or the other of those things. To pass the time, I will usually spend a block of time on CNN or something similar. In the lobby of the car dealership, while I wait for my oil change, I read about turmoil in Africa and the Middle East. The irony is not lost on me. It is easy for me to read the news during these blocks of in-between times because I would never leave my house without my phone. It is conceivable that I would forget the newspaper on my way out the door.We're all living in such a "hurry up and wait" world, that news reading represents stolen moments just as much as it is about intentionally finding news. This is a trend of convenience. Taken in this light, however, the d because the opportunities to access news have increased. I can grab news on my phone or my home laptop or my work PC. "No matter the device, digital news consumption continued upward in 2011," Pew claims.
The boost behind that overall growth came at CNN, which was up 16% in prime time to a median of 654,000 viewers. And MSNBC was up 20% during the daytime. Fox News Channel was the only one of the three main news channels to experience a second straight year of declines. It ended 2011 down 3% in prime time and 2% in daytime. Fox remained the clear leader over all, though, with a median prime time audience of 1.9 million, making 2011 its 10th straight year of ratings dominance.
Another interesting point comes from the fact that people are going directly to web sources for news media and then there seems to be some brand loyalty. The article also mentioned that "News viewership on television grew in unexpected venues. At the three traditional broadcast television networks, news audiences grew 4.5%, the first uptick in a decade. At the local level, audiences grew in both morning and late evening, the first growth in five years." I have to wonder if, people also like me, are flipping on the TV for the follow-up for whatever I read on my phone.
I almost always turn to CNN for my national news. It would seem that statistically, I am not alone.
The only upside-down party hat on the above graph appears to be newspapers. I have to be honest with you, I have a weird nostalgia for newspapers. I don't buy them anymore, but I used to pick up a paper as a part of my daily commute. I took a bus into downtown Hartford for a number of years. Reading on the bus felt like the right thing to do. Business suit: check. Commuter bus: check. The paper and a styrofoam cup of coffee? Usually, check. At some point, I stopped taking the bus and got a smartphone and a travel mug.
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