What's News? For Americans It's Not What You Think

The Axios analysis is reasonable enough After surfeiting on a threering circus masquerading as a presidency Americans are worn out Donald Trump39s demagoguery hasn39t tuckered them totally the January 6th Committee39s hearings so far average better than 12 million viewers But a postTrump slump isn39t the only reason for declining attention to events affecting the country and the world The news the analysts say is delivering too much of a bad thingThat conclusion too makes sense up to a point Inflation recession fears a Supreme Court veering radically right war in Ukraine and COVID variants that won39t go away The world39s downers might not appeal as much as an escape to sports or celebrities on trial The disinterest isn39t only evident on broadcast and cable People are googling the news less as reflected in data from social media news apps and search engine tallies on the subjects they seek outSwings in the stats of course have happened before Americans generally tune out after election campaigns That was the case last year according to Nielson Cable networks took the biggest hits Primetime viewership for CNN and Fox dropped 33 percent while broadcast networks saw their viewers fall by low doubledigit percentages as well 2022 continues the trend Cable news viewers are down on average 19 percent in prime time compared to 2021But statistics however finegrained only present an approximation of what39s on people39s minds For one thing not everyone behaves alike Contrast the drop in viewers for the manically liberal MSNBC vs the bump up in audiences for the hyperrightwing Fox News Notwithstanding billiondollar lawsuits for peddling the big lie39s nonsense about Venezuelans fixing voting machines Fox39s prime time propagandists still are pulling in their loyal crowdsInterpreting interest in news online also is more complicated than tote sheets can portray Recent findings by Piano a tech company that builds paywalls gives evidence why Take its numbers on news sites Piano reports that 33 percent of people who subscribe to digital news sites cancel within a day Among the reasons the company offers Many may well like one article but not the site Small wonder With news sites folding almost as fast as they launch their ephemeral existence and content offer little reason to stick aroundAnd that39s the point that deserves attention Before poring over what the audience metrics mean for CNN or Vicecom it makes sense to ask what do Americans think is quotnewsquot It39s not a trick question or one that media bosses are ignoring In at least one case they appear to be changing the definition of the word Among his dictates at CNN Chris Licht the network39s new chief reportedly has given instructions to dial back advocacy on camera rather than continuing to try to out orate Rupert Murdoch39s kennel of Josef Goebbels wannabes on FoxHow much Licht will change CNN39s product by titrating its reporting and rhetoric remains to be seen so does whether viewers will notice or even care A 2020 survey by the Rand Corporation a think tank found that broadcast and cable news came out on top for quotreliabilityquot in reporting news But people surveyed were evenly split on the quality of what they saw 44 percent said the news was as reliable as in the past 41 percent said it was less In other words close to half said news on their selfdeclared goto source was heading downhillMore telling when it comes to whether reliability is important the Rand survey suggests the answer for many news consumers is not so much Indeed onethird of Rand39s respondents said they knowingly used news sources that were less reliable such as social media and content sent by peers quotWe have to consider that some people are looking to news platforms as a means of entertainmentquot Michael Pollard Rand researcher and the study39s author explained quotIf this is the case then finding a trustworthy or reliable source doesn39t necessarily matterquotPollard is onto something and he39s not alone A Knight Foundation study in 2017 called into question the relevance of audience measurement methods after exploring Gen Z39s trust in social over mainstream media and its amorphous definition of quotnewsquot This month researchers from Stanford the University of Pennsylvania39s Annenberg School and Microsoft fingered television not social media for segregating Americans into silos where what they see as quotnewsquot rarely if ever contends with conflicting viewsThe study published in Science Advances analyzed billions of online browsing as well as television viewing events over three years quotTelevision is the top driver of partisan audience segregation among Americansquot the authors conclude quotTelevision news consumers are several times more likely to maintain their partisan news diet monthovermonthquot as well as quotto concentrate on their preferred sourcesquot And the researchers added quotthe audiences of partisan news channels are growing even as the TV news audience shrinksquotWhat39s quotnewsquot It39s a relevant question For Fox Warner Bros Discovery and NBCUniversal which own the news silos it39s also a civic one quotPartisan segregation among the news audiences buffers many Americans from countervailing views posing a threat to democracyquot the Stanford Annenberg and Microsoft research team writes As the executives at the media giants examine their news networks39 latest viewer numbers perhaps they39ll contemplate what they39ve created on the way to the bankClick the social buttons to share this content with your friends and colleaguesThe opinions and points of view expressed in this content are exclusively the views of the author andor subjects and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet Inc management or associated writers

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What's News? For Americans It's Not What You Think

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Kent M. Harrington

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