Americans are increasingly turning to television and the Internet to get their news, while radio and print news continue to decline in popularity, according to a survey released Monday.
Pew Research Center asked U.S. adults in July and August whether they would rather watch, read, click, or listen to the news. On top with 44 percent were adults who opt to watch newscasts on television, followed by 34 percent who picked viewing it online. Fourteen percent said radio and 7 percent, a new low, said print newspapers or magazines, according to the survey.
Online news’ popularity jumped from 28 percent in 2016 to 34 percent now. Print readership dropped from 11 percent to 7 percent.
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Three-quarters of people who said they like to watch, not read, the news said TV was their preferred medium.
Although all age groups said they like reading the news online and watching it on TV, those numbers were highest among people between 18 and 49 years old.
Three-quarters of the younger group said they would rather read news online, compared with 8 percent who named newspapers. Among adults over 50, one-third likes to have a hard copy rather than getting their news on a computer or smartphone.
For these older Americans who prefer to watch the news, 86 percent said they favor TV versus the 10 percent who said online. For the 18-49 age group, 61 percent prefer TV while 34 picked the Internet.
The web survey of 4,581 adults, conducted between July 30 and Aug. 12, has a margin of error of 2.5 percentage points.
