Web Most Popular News Source

The Web is by far the most popular source of information and the preferred choice for news ahead of TV, newspapers and radio, according to a new poll in the United States. More than half of the people questioned in the Zogby Interactive survey would select the Internet if they had to choose only one source of news.

21 per cent would select television and 10 per cent would choose both newspapers and radio. Forget Facebook and Twitter: Just 10 percent consider Facebook as important for news while 4 percent said the same of Twitter.

The Internet was also chosen as the most reliable source of news by nearly 40 per cent of adults, compared to the 17 per cent who opted for television, 16 per cent who selected newspapers and 13 per cent who picked radio.

‘The poll reinforces the idea that efforts by established newspapers, television and radio news outlets to push their consumers to their respective websites is working,’ Zogby said.

Almost half of 3,030 adults surveyed said national newspaper websites were important to them, 43 per cent preferred TV websites. 28 percent say blogs, , were important.

Websites of traditional news outlets are seen by a wide margin as more important than blog sites, most of which are repositories of opinion devoid of actual reportage – an encouraging development for mainstream media.

82 per cent said the Web would be the main source of information in five years time, compared to the 13 who said television and 0.5 per cent who chose newspapers.

Meantime, The British Library has put two million digitised pages from 19th century newspapers online, taking research out of its dusty reading rooms into people’s homes. The pay-as-you-go service brings a century of history alive from Jack-the-Ripper to WC Grace.

Related reads
Just click for a century of news
British Library 19th century newspapers
Call for limits on web snooping

Advertisement