SFN report: TV beat newspapers and Internet as the top national and International news source in U.S.

Posted by Erina Lin on December 7, 2009 at 2:42 PM

According to Pew Research Center for the People & the Press December 2008 Political & Economic Survey, most respondents (70 percent) said they get most of their national and International news from TV, compared with 40 percent from the Internet and 35 percent from newspapers.

Scores for TV and newspapers slipped from 2001 to 2008, from 74 percent to 70 percent, and from 45 percent to 35 percent, respectively. The Internet, however, surged from 13 percent to 40 percent in that time. The year 2008 was the first time the Internet exceeded newspapers in the survey, SFN's World Digital Media Trends 2009 reported.

Among young people between ages 18 and 29, the Internet was ranked as one of the top main news sources, along with TV - each with 59 percent of respondents saying so. However, TV's score dropped 11 percent from 2007 to 2008, while the Internet grew by 25 percent, up from 32 percent in August 2006 to 59 percent in December 2008, according to Pew.

Twenty-three percent of respondents pick newspapers as the main news source in 2007, and it increased to 28 percent in December 2008, according to the report, World Digital Media Trends 2009, released by SFN and the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers.