News Habits & Media

A new kind of news consumer emerges as a quarter of the population blends news sources rather than relying on one platform.

The Beijing Olympics gave media an opportunity to report on the athletic competition and life inside the world’s most-populous nation. What—and who—got covered? Were there differences by media? And how did that differ from coverage abroad?

Summary of Findings The upcoming Democratic National Convention is generating much more public interest than did the party’s convention four years ago. Fully 59% of Americans say they are interested in following what happens at the Democratic convention, up from 36% in 2004. Nearly a third (31%) say they are very interested, while 28% say […]

A new Pew Research Center survey finds people using various traditional media at historically low levels. But the more telling findings here are not where people get news but how. In a commentary, PEJ Director Tom Rosenstiel sees the outlines of a new "On Demand" Media Culture.

Last week, for the first time this year, an event other than the race for president was the No. 1 story. The crisis with Russia was the top story and campaign theme in a week when Barack Obama got more coverage, but John McCain may have gotten the better of it.

The story of the troubled U.S. economy has proven a hard one for journalists to tell. How have the media covered the slump? How timely was the reporting? Did the media influence public attitudes?

Overview For more than a decade, the audiences for most traditional news sources have steadily declined, as the number of people getting news online has surged. However, today it is not a choice between traditional sources and the internet for the core elements of today’s news audiences. A sizable minority of Americans find themselves at […]

Summary of Findings The China Olympics are catching on with the American public and attracting a sizeable news audience. A majority of Americans say they are watching at least some of the Olympic coverage. Public interest in the Beijing games is comparable to that of the 2000 summer Olympics in Sydney; yet substantially lower than […]

One week after sharing headlines equally with John McCain, Barack Obama again dominated the news last week. And even as McCain and Obama sparred over energy, the old question of what do the Clintons want generated major coverage.

A new University of Georgia survey of recent degree recipients finds that despite the growing economic ills of the media industry, the job market for 2007 graduates was basically unchanged from a year earlier. And sometimes, the absence of bad news can be good news.