Which media folks
turn to for what
It's TV for breaking news and weather, radio for traffic
By Diego Vasquez
Sep 27, 2011
What media you turn to for your local news depends on the topic you want to know about. That's the major finding of a new study for the Project for Excellence in Journalism and Pew Internet & American Life Project, which finds that although local TV delivers a mass audience, people are tuning in mostly to find out about two things, breaking news and weather. They look to other media for information on other topics, like radio for traffic news and online for restaurant listings. Nearly half, 45 percent, of all respondents said they do not have a favorite local news source, though online was at the top of the list for nearly every topic surveyed. Interestingly, while the perception is that newspapers are playing less of a role in our daily lives, the survey found that both print and online papers rank first or tie for first as the source people rely on most for 11 of the 16 different kinds of local information included in the survey. Tom Rosenstiel, director at the Project for Excellence in Journalism, talks to Media Life about what topics are most popular for which media, how local TV and newspapers compare, and why this should matter to media people.
What did you find most surprising or most interesting about this report?
I think we were able to fill in a missing link in the understanding of local news. In the past, researchers tended to think about local news as one subject, one that was distinct from national or international news. It felt out of sync.
If you looked at local news content, you could see that different media specialized in different kinds of news—that weeklies did one thing, radio was strong in another, TV had a different news agenda in many ways than daily newspapers.
Why, how that worked and how that affected people wasn’t really understood or accounted for in most of the research. The quantitative understanding of local news was too simple, and perhaps so were some of the answers that the industry was coming to, such as the idea everyone should become “hyperlocal” so they would have unique content.
This research shows that consumers understand that there is no one place for local news.
Citizens already knew that where you find out about your kid’s school, or why your town council did something, is not the same place as you might go to find out why the subway is stopped right now.
What this study found out is that the ecosystem of local news and information in the digital age is complex, nuanced, logical and encompasses everything from mobile apps to people talking face to face, and that is probably going to become more complex over time.
What is the most important thing media buyers and planners can learn from it?
The most important thing buyers and planners can learn is that the medium is not the message. On the contrary, the message dictates which medium people use.
To learn about local restaurants, people go to certain places. To find out about local concerts and cultural events, they go to other places. And even in the digital age, some very old media thrive. This means, even for local news, targeting is probably the key.
How has the way people learn about their local community changed the most over the past few years?
Obviously, if we had done this survey 10 years ago the internet would have had a smaller audience. But newspapers might have as well. Because one finding is that newspaper web sites have become quite important—and have a distinct audience from print. That means that some new technologies are extensions of old media sources.
In a similar way, the power of the oldest medium of all—word of mouth—is extended by technologies like Twitter and texting. So what is old can be in some ways new again. The survey finds that almost half of all adults, 47 percent, now use mobile in some ways to get local information and news, but it is largely supplemental.
That is almost certain to grow, and if we do this survey again in two or three years, I think we will see significant changes, but they may be in ways that are not unexpected. A lot will depend on how the economics evolve.
What are the major differences between the audiences who are drawn to TV and newspapers, and why?
One difference is the topics they are interested in.
People who need information about taxes and real estate and education and other so-called “civic” subjects are drawn to newspapers. Those tend to be people who have lived in their communities longer. They also tend to be older. But that may in part be because if you are older you are more likely to own a house, pay real estate taxes and have kids in school.
So it will be interesting to see if the people who are under 40 today in five or 10 years are drawn to newspaper web sites and mobile and tablet apps because now they are more interested in those civic topics.
How has the internet changed the way people gather information about their community? How has this impacted other media?
Clearly local news has always been participatory. How do you find a doctor or a roofer or decide which stores to trust or restaurants to try? We have always talked about these things with neighbors.
The new technologies, whether they are computer list serves or services like Yelp, make it even more possible to connect with each other this way and collect more information from more neighbors more quickly.
My sense is that the technology is extending the way we gather information, and moving it to new platforms. But it is less clear to me that it is changing the psychology of how we gather information about where we live.
Which topics are most sought-out online and why?
At the moment, the internet is a top source for information about restaurants and local business, for housing schools and jobs (the last three tied with newspapers). But for those who are online and those under 40, it is a top source for more—indeed it ranks first or second for 15 out of the 16 topics we queried about. That has major implications for the future, especially the age demographics.
Nearly half of respondents said they do not have a favorite local news source. Why do you think that is?
This is partly speculation of course, but as newsrooms shrink, the ability of any one outlet to be a single source on everything is diminished.
But I think it goes beyond that. As consumers, we also have the ability to seek out more sources. Thus our power as consumers to use the net to find out what restaurants people like means somewhat less reliance on the local newspaper food critic or the city magazine "best" lists. And the ability to get weather on my phone or computer means less dependence on local TV weather person. And the ability to read something in the local weekly and then look up more about it through a web search means we are triangulating sources more.
We have the power to choose more. So we are choosing more. And that is likely only to increase.
Where are people most likely to go for information on local politics and why?
People are most likely to get information about local politics from the newspaper and from local TV news. Now, that is different than information about local government, which is a topic where newspapers are more of a clear choice. And if you are under 40, the internet takes on a bigger role in your consumption both about local politics and government.
Why are social networking sites more of an afterthought for finding out local news?
I don’t know if that it is entirely clear. One reason is that social networking sites such as Facebook evolved when they expanded beyond colleges as ways for people across long distances to connect and reconnect.
Another may be that the phenomenon of social networking as a news source is still fairly new. Search developed first, and still remains, a more powerful instrument for finding things about the world and the nation than to find out things across the street. I think it will be very interesting to watch and see whether social networking evolves into a more powerful civic and local phenomenon in the next few years.
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