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- www. getthegoodstuffhere.com
Net news is choice of young, educated persons, says study
YAKIMA VALLEY--(Wednesday, 6-14-00)---Media-trend polls say young, better-educated Americans and those seeking financial info are turning away from traditional news sources and to the Internet.
At the same time, many may have wised up to the "gatekeeper" role of the corporate press and media, some argue.
According to a 1970s communications professor at Seattle's University of Washington, this "gatekeeper" role includes holding back certain information from readers that makes it tough for government to function smoothly.
"If too many people know too much at the wrong time, it leads to serious problems for government," this tax-paid pedagogue told his journalism students. One student, however, spoke up.
"I don't agree with that philosophy at all," said the student who, unlike his classmates, had done a six-year stint in the military plus a year on an investigative newspaper. "I won't sit on a story for anyone."
The long-haired, skinny professor winked at the class, flapped his bony elbows, then addressed his politically incorrect student. "You're free to disagree. Just keep your answers in accordance with what I consider to be the correct answers on the exam Friday," he said.
The 2000 media poll says the Web's rapid growth continues to splinter the general news audience among the Internet, cable and broadcast television, and print publications.
The media survey was conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. Survey Director Andrew Kohut said folks have more ways to communicate now.
"The environment in which the news is put out and received is very different from five years ago," Kohut said.
A third of the public now goes online for news at least once a week, compared to a fifth in 1998--just two years ago. Some 15% get their daily reports from the Internet, almost three times the number two years ago, says the Pew poll.
The credibility of Internet news sources varies widely. Highest ratings are given to Web sites run by network or cable TV outlets or national newspapers. Well-known Internet names like America Online, Netscape and Yahoo! ranked higher on credibility than lesser-known sites, which apparently must earn credibility with reading audiences with discipline over time.
For active financial investors, the Internet has all but supplanted traditional media as the leading source for stock quotes and investment advice, the poll suggests. Almost half of active traders, 45 percent, said the Internet was their main source for stock market updates.
Slightly more than half of those polled, 54%, said they go online sometimes to access the Internet or use e-mail. That number has more than doubled from 23 percent in 1996. Some find the wealth of information overwhelming.
Almost a third, 30 percent, said they feel overloaded--up slightly from 23 percent five years ago--while twice as many, or 62 percent, said they liked having the information available.
The poll of 3,142 people, taken from April 20 through May 13, has an error margin of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points, slightly higher for subgroups, Pew says.
Newspapers went through a difficult period in the 1970s and 1980s caused by increasing options on television and other changes in American lifestyles. Newspaper readership has held relatively steady since then, with almost two-thirds saying they read a paper regularly, according to the poll.
Now, it is the television industry--particularly broadcast--that is feeling pinched by the fast growth of the Web and cable TV as optional sources of information, Kohut said.
The news industry as a whole is feeling a pressure more troubling than competition between outlets.
The appetite for news is slipping--from 53 percent in 1996 who closely followed the news, to 45 percent. Fewer than a third of young adults said they enjoy keeping up with the news.
From that, it would appear that more than 70% percent of young adults feel reading the news can neither help them better themselves nor alleviate a problem from which they may suffer.
The Yakima Valley News has attempted--albeit imperfectly --to provide a variety of databases accessible through "clicking" from each breaking news story it publishes online.
Several of these databases were obtained only after YVN invoked the U.S. Freedom-Of-Information-Act or Washington State's Open Public Records Law. In most cases, government balked at releasing the data.
YVN's goal has been to:
- Link breaking news stories with earlier stories, with hard-won databases, and with other websites, to increase the reader's grasp of the manner in which breaking news affects him personally,
- to give him quick access to, and detailed info about, principals involved in the breaking news story,
- to indicate how he can quickly leverage real changes where he is being adversely affected
- and to give him nuts-and-bolts info that can help him better himself or better his position
"If more than 70% of young adults can't obtain this kind of info precisely when they need it, why the hell should they bother with traditional news sources?" said YVN publisher Larry Ashby.
"We firmly believe there should be a Yakima Valley News-type news and data source in each of America's 3,100 counties," Ashby said. "The sooner the better."