This chart from Pew highlights the big conceptual error in most coverage I see of the decline of newspapers and the rise of the Internet: Television. Television, not newspapers or the Internet, is people’s main source of news. And while I’ve been known to enjoy TV news or even appear on it as a guest, watching TV is not a great way to get information about complicated subjects.
It’s noteworthy and important that the age cohort least likely to rely on newspapers for news is also the cohort least likely to rely on television. This is yet another reason why I’m fundamentally a journalism optimist in the Internet era.
