At LANE PR we love it when The Pew Internet & American Life Project comes out with a new report.  The latest, “Understanding the Participatory News Consumer,” reports that while television is still the biggest source of news, the Internet is now number two, ahead of print and radio. 

This is big news.  The rapid rise of mobile technologies, broadband access and social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube have created a news kaleidoscope that shifts in real time.  As the report says, this kaleidoscope is “Portable, personalized and participatory.” 

I encourage anyone involved in marketing or driving sales for a business to read the report and consider how these shifts in the making and sharing of news are impacting your business today, and how they might in the future. 

Key stats from the report:
1. TV is still the biggest source of news (78% of Americans say they get news from a local TV station), Internet sits at second place (61% of users get news online), ahead of radio and newspapers.
2. Three fourths of the people (75%) who find news online get it either forwarded through e-mail or posts on social networking sites.
3. Half of them (52%) forward the news through those means.
4. 59% of those surveyed get news from a combination of online and offline sources.
5. Nearly half of Americans (46%) claim they get news from four to six media platforms on a typical day.
6. Only 17% — claim they read news in a national newspaper such as The New York Times or USA Today
7. Very few people nowadays (7%) are getting information from a single media platform.
8. Thirty-three percent of cell phone owners now access news on their phones
9. 28% use personalized news, meaning they have a customized page that includes news from sources they’ve chosen.
10. News consumers today participate in the creation of news; 37% have contributed to news creation, commented on news or shared it via social media sites such as Facebook or Twitter. 

For the full report, click here.