News Media Trends

It took several weeks after the killing of teenager Trayvon Martin before the story exploded in the media. A new PEJ report reveals how social and mainstream media platforms focused on different elements of the controversy and how ideology influenced coverage on the cable and radio talk shows.

Kristen Purcell will be discussing Pew Internet's groundbreaking data on local news information ecosystems

Overview The growing controversy over the shooting death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Florida was the public’s top story last week, though African Americans express far greater interest in news about the killing than do whites. Overall, a quarter of Americans (25%) say they followed news about the African American teenager killed by a community […]

Overview Rising fuel prices topped the public’s news interest last week as the average cost of gasoline neared $4.00 a gallon. About a quarter (26%) say they followed news about rising gas and oil prices more closely than any other story, according to the latest weekly News Interest Index survey, conducted March 15-18 among 1,009 […]

Perhaps no topic in technology attracted more attention in 2011 than the rise of social media and its potential impact on news. “If searching for news was the most important development of the last decade, sharing news may be among the most important of the next,” we wrote in a May 2011 report analyzing online news behavior called Navigating News Online.

Mobile devices are adding to people’s consumption of news, strengthening the lure of traditional news brands and providing a boost to long-form journalism, according to the Project for Excellence in Journalism's ninth annual report on the health of American journalism.

The migration of audiences toward digital news advanced to a new level in 2011 and early 2012, the era of mobile and multidigital devices. More than three-quarters of U.S. adults own laptop or desktop computers, a number that has been stable for some years.1 Now, in addition, 44% of adults own a smartphone, and the number of tablet owners grew by about 50% since the summer of 2011, to 18% of Americans over age 18.

Overview The presidential campaign again proved to be the top story for the public and the media last week. Overall public interest is comparable to most previous primary election cycles, but well below the high mark set four years ago. Last week, which included Super Tuesday contests in 10 states, 28% say they followed election […]

Overview Election news continued to be the public’s top story last week, just ahead of the March 6 Super Tuesday voting. Just more than two-in-ten (22%) say they followed news about the candidates for president more closely than any other news. Somewhat fewer (17%) cite the tornadoes that hit parts of the Midwest, according to […]

How close are America's beleaguered newspapers to solving their revenue problems? A new report from PEJ that includes detailed case studies of dozens of daily papers and interviews with newspaper company executives finds an industry struggling to reinvent itself, but also some hopeful success stories.