32 A few decades ago, young Americans were heavy consumers of news. More than half of the adults under 30 years of age were regular readers of a daily newspaper. Most of them also watched the evening newscasts on a regular basis. As Martin Wattenberg notes in his recent book Is Voting for Young People? : “There was little variation in news viewing habits by age. TV news producers could hardly write off young adults, given that two out of three said they had watched such broadcasts every night.” Analysts agree that today’s young Americans are less interested in news than their counterparts of a generation or two ago. However, estimates of the decline vary widely, and some analysts claim the digital revolution is a generational watershed that is bringing young people back to the news. “The notion is that no young person cares about news, and that is wrong,” says Lee Rainie of the Pew Internet and American Life Project. “They’re moving to a different distribution system.” We recently conducted a large national survey to discover what can reliably be said about the news exposure of today’s young Americans. The study had several special features. For one thing, our sample included teenage (ages 12-17) respondents, who’ve seldom been polled nationally on their news habits. We also stratified our sample, overselecting young adults (ages 18-30) in order to estimate more precisely their news habits. Finally, we used several measures of news exposure, looking not only at the frequency of Americans’ news exposure, which is the typical focus of media surveys, but also at the depth of their exposure and their familiarity with specific news stories. Precise assessments of young adults’ news habits are important in at least two respects. First, young people’s interest in news will affect the economic vitality of news organizations and thus their ability to invest in quality journalism. Also at stake is the grassroots vitality of America’s democracy. Although it is inaccurate to equate the newsconsuming citizen with the informed citizen, the news, as the journalist Walter Lippmann noted, is our window onto the world of public affairs. If we fail to look through that window, we will know little of the world that lies beyond our personal experience. Young People Flee from the News, Whatever the Source
