Online news has seen a sharp spike in the last year. According to the Pew Research Center for People and the Press the percentage of people getting their news online jumped from 24 percent a year ago to 40 percent. And in this same time period newspapers have been hovering around 35 percent.
If you’re after a younger audience the figures are even more startling: For those under 30 the internet now rivals television as a main source of national and international news. Nearly six-in-ten Americans in this age group (59%) say they get most of their national and international news online and an identical percentage cites television.
This is also a huge change in the last year – in September 2007, twice as many young people said they relied mostly on television for news than mentioned the internet (68% vs. 34%).
If this makes you rethink your media relations strategy for 2009, the PRoactive Report on News and Media Relations in the Internet Age would be a good read right about now.
