6 key takeaways about the state of the news media in 2020
We’ve updated our series of fact sheets on the U.S. news media industry. Here are some key findings about the state of the industry in 2020.
Michael Barthel is a senior researcher at Pew Research Center, where he focuses on U.S. public opinion of the news media, journalism, and social media. He is the author of reports on the newspaper and public broadcasting media sectors, fake news, civic engagement and news habits, attitudes toward the news media, and Americans’ use of Reddit for news. Barthel received his Ph.D. in communication from the University of Washington, where his research primarily addressed trust in the news media and digital journalism. He regularly discusses his research in interviews with the press and at speaking engagements.
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Facebook Posts in Early Days of Biden Administration Reflect Ideological Divide
A new study of posts on popular public Facebook pages about the early days of the Biden administration finds that the focus of these posts, as well as the assessments of the new president, differed widely by the ideological orientation of the pages.
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Measuring News Consumption in a Digital Era
As news outlets morph and multiply, both surveys and passive data collection tools face challenges.
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Many Americans are unsure whether sources of news do their own reporting
Roughly half of Americans or more were able to correctly identify whether three of the six sources asked about do their own reporting.
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Coronavirus-Driven Downturn Hits Newspapers Hard as TV News Thrives
Among the six publicly traded newspaper companies studied, second-quarter advertising revenue fell by a median of 42% year over year.
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Many Americans Get News on YouTube, Where News Organizations and Independent Producers Thrive Side by Side
Videos from independent news producers are more likely to cover subjects negatively and discuss conspiracy theories.
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Key facts about digital-native news outlets amid staff cuts, revenue losses
Traffic to digital-native news sites has plateaued in recent years. After rising from 2014 to 2016, it remained steady through 2019.
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Black, Hispanic and white adults feel the news media misunderstand them, but for very different reasons
59% of Americans think news organizations do not understand people like them, while a minority – 37% – say they do feel understood.
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#BlackLivesMatter surges on Twitter after George Floyd’s death
#BlackLivesMatter was used roughly 47.8 million times on Twitter – an average of just under 3.7 million times per day – from May 26 to June 7.
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Older people account for large shares of poll workers and voters in U.S. general elections
Older adults tend to account for large shares of both poll workers and voters in general elections in the United States.
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