Young people making dramatic move away from traditional news

There’s a dramatic revolution taking place in the news business today and it isn’t about TV-anchor changes, scandals at storied newspapers or even the fierce tensions between government and the press. The future course of news, the basic assumptions about how we consume news and information and make decisions in a democratic society, are being altered, perhaps irrevocably, by technologically savvy young people no longer wedded to traditional news outlets or even accessing news in traditional ways. While the news business is in the news more than industry leaders might prefer, the most important issue they face revolves around the news habits of today’s news consumers, and, in particular, those of young people. There’s an inescapable conclusion to be drawn from research I completed earlier this year for the Carnegie Corp. of New York about the news habits of 18- to 34-year-olds. In short, the future of the U.S. news industry is seriously threatened by the seemingly irrevocable move by young people away from traditional sources of news.

Source: Merrill Brown, The Seattle Times

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