News-Hungry Americans Lack Appetite for Newspapers

Image by eszter via FlickrTwenty-six percent of Americans thumbed through a newspaper yesterday, and only 8 percent of them were under age 30.


That grim disclosure for lovers of broadsheets and tabloids was among the findings culled from a Pew Research Center for People & the Press survey reported by trade publication Editor & Publisher. Forty-four percent of the respondents polled by Pew sought news through the Internet, cell phones, Email, social media or podcasts.


The 26 percent who opted to hold a newspaper in their hands is down from the 38 percent who admitted to doing so in Pew's 2006 survey.  On the positive side of the ledger, the latest poll found news consumption among Americans the highest that it's been in the best decade. If so, "TUOL" wants to know why 20 percent of Americans believe President Obama is a Muslim and why only 28 percent of people polled by Pew could identify John Roberts as Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.