The data also make it abundantly clear that it is important to make a publication accessible to friends and family of current readers, perhaps through family packages. Almost all of these practices are even more important to reach younger future subscribers.
There will be more on this in the section exploring age-related differences among recent subscribers. People interacted with a newspaper or its journalists in many ways before subscribing. About 1 in 3 respondents report they used the newspaper before subscribing, and among those 1, subscribers, the most common uses were regular website visits, followed by finding it in search, noticing friends and family using it, and buying individual copies.
The data also show that this engagement builds and unfolds over time. News publishers should expect readers to follow a relatively slow, meandering path toward subscribing. Most new subscribers who used the publication before subscribing, 74 percent, say they were doing so for several months or more, including 49 percent who used it for a year or more before making the decision to pay. And frequency of contact seemed to matter. Of those who used the publication before subscribing, more than a third 36 percent say they were using the publication either in print or digitally for free at least daily before subscribing.
Another third 35 percent say they used the newspaper a few days a week. On the other hand, just 29 percent say a few days a month or less. Put another way, 7 out of 10 future subscribers who used the paper before subscribing say they were encountering the paper at least a few days a week before paying for it. Beyond the engagement with the source before subscribing, there are a number of ways that future subscribers recognize how the publication is or could be valuable to them.
These were derived from results of a previous survey we did in the spring of In every society, though, whatever is unusual is likely to be news.
Events which are new and unusual may still not be of general interest. Scientists may report that an insect has just been found living on a plant which it did not previously inhabit. The discovery is new, and the event is unusual, but it is unlikely to interest anybody other than a specialist or enthusiast. In a specialist publication this could be big news, but in a general news broadcast or paper it would merit at most a few words.
However, if that same insect was one which had a huge appetite, and which had previously lived on and eaten bush grass and if the new plant on which it had been found was rice, then the story becomes news, because it is significant.
People may not be interested in bugs, but they are interested in food. If this insect is now threatening their crops, it becomes a matter of concern to them. It is news because it is significant. Similarly, if a peasant farmer says that the Roman Catholic Church should ordain women priests, that is not news. If an archbishop says it, it is news, because what he says on the subject is significant.
It is the views of people such as the archbishop which help to form the policy of the Church. Once again, what is interesting or significant in one society may not be interesting or significant in another.
The content of the news may be different, therefore, in different societies, but the way it is identified will be the same. Most news is automatically about people, because it is the things people do to change the world which makes news.
However, news can also be made by non-human sources, such as a cyclone, a bush fire, a drought, a volcanic eruption or an earthquake. It is when reporting these stories that it is important to make sure that the story is centred on people. The cyclone would not matter if it blew itself out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, away from any inhabited islands; the fire could burn for as long as it likes in bush where nobody lives; the Sahara Desert has a near-permanent drought, but in most of it nobody is there to rely on rains; a volcanic eruption or an earthquake which damages nobody's property and injures nobody is really not news.
All these natural disasters only become news when they affect people's lives. Every story can be told in terms of people. Whenever you have a story which tells of how something has happened which affects both people and property, always put the people first. A story which is new, unusual, interesting, significant and about people is going to be a very good story indeed. One way of deciding the strength of a story is to check how many of those five criteria it meets.
The same event happening in two different places can have two quite different news values. A coup in the country next door is still a big story, because it may affect the stability of your own country. However, a coup in a small country in another continent is unlikely to merit more than a few paragraphs. The appeal of local news is that your readers or listeners might know the people or place involved. Remember, though, that the word "local" means different things to different people.
If you broadcast to a wide area or sell your newspaper in many different towns, you must realise that a small story which interests readers in one place, because it is local, may not be of any interest to readers elsewhere. The average reader, listener or viewer may be a parent, a person wanting a good education for the children, dreaming of buying a car, looking forward to going home on leave, anticipating the next big community feast or festival.
You will need to have a very clear understanding of what your own readers or listeners are like. So stories about bride-price or dowries, children, land disputes, new schools, cheaper or dearer fares, or whatever else is important and may affect your average reader, will have personal impact.
People can identify with stories about other people like themselves. So those stories with which many people can identify are stronger than those which only apply to a few. A lot of news will come to you as a journalist without any real effort on your part.
Government handouts, Ministers' speeches and announcements of new developments come into the newsroom after being processed by press officers or public relations officers. Passing on such information, as long as it is genuinely interesting and informative, is an important function of the media, to provide society with the hard facts of what is happening in the country.
It is part of your job as a journalist to sort out what is interesting and informative from the millions of boring words which may be sent to you. And here too we heard people discount the idea that the number of shares or likes was a metric of credibility.
A fundamental question any research about trust in news must address is whether trust actually matters to audiences and, if so, how. The data here suggest that the specific factors of trust do correlate not only to whether people turn to a particular source but also how much they engage with news in general. People who rate specific factors related to trust as especially important are the most likely to engage with, and to pay for, news from the source they rely on.
They are especially more likely to share content from their trusted sources. And again, this relationship varies by topic. And those news consumers especially concerned with trustworthiness are also the most likely to report that they take valuable actions — such as paying for news, spreading news to friends, and following the source on social platforms.
In short, news organizations that earn trust have an advantage in earning money and growing their audience. To assess the relationship between trust and engagement, we compare the people who are most likely to report that specific factors related to trust are very important reasons they rely on a source versus people who say they are less important.
When we do this analysis the relationship between trust and engagement is clear. They are also more likely to follow their favorite news sources on social media 40 percent vs. Those who put a premium on trust factors are also more likely to pay for the source of news they use 28 percent vs. The focus group discussions about the relationship between trust and engagement provided additional context.
The focus group participants described trust as more than just accuracy or balance. It also includes an emotional connection. People talked about a trusted source consistently meeting their needs, and that they go to trusted sources more frequently and usually first because it saves them time and energy. People also said they will take steps to proactively engage with a trusted source, such as following it on social media or paying more for it.
In particular, several said they would pay only for apps from a trusted source. I know the names of anchors and casts. I know the segment shifts. At the same time, we heard in the focus groups that a loss of trust can lead people to turn to other news outlets. As with trust in general, the relationship between trust and engagement varies based on the topic of the news. This is especially the case when it comes to paying for a source and following it on social media.
However, there are not significant differences between these groups when it comes to paying for news on other topics. But there are no substantial differences between whether people in these different trust groups are likely to follow a favorite news organization for other topics. But putting a higher premium on trust factors does not correlate to engaging in these ways for most other news topics.
There is one form of engagement where a higher value on trust matters virtually no matter what the topic. People who put a higher premium on factors related to trust are more likely to share news content from a favorite source on social media, across topics. The only exceptions to that are sports and foreign or international news. In addition to factors traditionally associated with trust — such as getting the facts right or having the latest details — engagement is also correlated to convenience and entertainment.
For example, those who highly value that a news source presents news and information in a way that it can be easily discussed with other people are about twice as likely as those who place less importance on this to share content from a favorite news source 51 percent vs. People who say that it is important that news is presented in a way that is entertaining are more likely than those who place a lower importance on this quality to follow that news organization on social media.
And history and habit matter, too. This study finds that the majority of Americans, however, cannot recall a specific experience with a news source that made them trust it less. In all, only 4 in 10 recall a specific bad experience they had with a news source that they say has caused them to lose trust in an organization.
Of those who could, the most common complaint is they saw something that was inaccurate or they perceived it as bias. Public confidence in the press by many measures is low. In this survey, for instance, 6 percent of people say they have a great deal of confidence in the press, 52 percent say they have only some confidence, and 41 percent say they hardly any confidence. These findings are similar to the results of other recent studies. For example, a September Gallup survey found 7 percent of Americans have a great deal of trust and confidence in the mass media, 33 percent have a fair amount, and 60 percent have either not very much or none at all.
This survey, however, does not delve deeply into the issue of confidence; nor does it analyze its trends over time. Our goal is to try to understand what makes people trust, rely, and turn to news sources and to understand what concrete steps news organizations can take to increase that trust. General questions about how much confidence people have in the news media are quite different than probing what it is people like about the news organizations they rely on.
In an increasingly diverse media landscape, people may see more media they dislike and also see more that they find useful as well. That paradox can be seen in two divergent trends. By many measures in different surveys people say they are consuming more news than they used to even while the trajectory about trust and confidence in the press in general has been trending downward.
That said, the survey asks about confidence in different institutions so that we can assess the relationship between how important certain trust factors are to people and their confidence in the press in general. Public confidence in the press is similar to confidence in Congress. Data Source: Question: I am going to name some institutions in this country. As far as the people running these institutions are concerned, would you say you have a great deal of confidence, only some confidence, or hardly any confidence at all in them?
Americans who express low levels of confidence in the press generally are more likely than those with only some confidence to say that it is very important that a trustworthy source be complete 81 percent vs. Similarly, the small group of people who do express a high degree of confidence in the press place a higher value on entertainment and other factors that are not directly related to trust when it comes to why they say they rely on a source.
Nearly half 49 percent of those who say they have a great deal of confidence in the press say that making the news entertaining is an important reason they rely on their chosen source compared to 39 percent of those who have only some confidence and 35 percent of those who have hardly any confidence. Similarly, 68 percent of people with a great deal of confidence in the press say that having a history with the source is an important reason they rely on it compared to 51 percent of those with only some and 50 percent of those with hardly any confidence.
The survey also asked people about whether they could recall a specific experience that caused them to trust a media organization less than they once had, hoping that we could probe what it was that caused that erosion in confidence. The majority of Americans cannot cite any specific instance. In all, about 4 in 10 people 38 percent report that they have had an experience that made them trust a news or information source less. Of those who could recall such an instance, we asked about the nature of the incident.
The two most common problems people cite are incidents that they perceived as evidence of bias or that showed a news source had been inaccurate.
Much smaller percentages of the public report experiencing decreases in trust due to being personally offended by content 9 percent , finding advertisements annoying or deceptive 5 percent , not being able to easily access stories 3 percent , or starting to receive unwanted emails, texts, or alerts 2 percent. Data Source: Question: What happened that made you trust that news and information source less? Please select all that apply. These bad experiences, however, seem to have made a difference.
Those with low confidence in the press overall are much more likely than others to say they have had a negative experience with a news source that has made them trust it less. Fully 45 percent of those with hardly any confidence in the press in general could recall a specific incident that made them lose trust, compared to 28 percent of those with a great deal of confidence and 34 percent of those with only some confidence.
The focus group discussions provided important context for understanding how a bad experience can erode confidence. Participants were generally positive about their overall news experiences. However, when probed to really focus on a bad experience with a source, they were able to articulate very emotional and visceral reactions to the situation.
Many focus group participants said they feel like they have been personally wronged, taken advantage of, or fooled when they have a bad experience with a news source. Several people told us a bad experience with one story could lead to a total loss of trust in a source.
For example, a bad experience with one television anchor could lead to a distrust of an entire television network. Importantly, several focus group participants said they do not expect news sources to be perfect and how a source reacts to errors can actually build trust.
Several people said that owning up to mistakes and drawing attention to errors or mistakes can show consumers that a source is accountable and dedicated to getting it right in the long term. And trust seems to be an important component related to how much people interact with news in general. Those who get news more frequently are more likely to put a very high value on certain specific factors related to trust, particularly that news organizations they rely on get the facts right and always have the latest news.
They are also likely to say that the news is presented in a clear and concise way is important. In contrast, there are not significant differences between people who follow news frequently and those who do not when it comes to other factors such as whether they care if the news is entertaining or that they like to be able to multitask when getting the news.
Americans are frequent and avid consumers of news. Eighty percent say they watch, read, or hear the news at least once a day, including 59 percent who say they do so several times a day.
A majority of Americans 60 percent also say that keeping up with the news is very or extremely important to them.
Just 8 percent report it is not very or not at all important to them. In this digital age, news consumers can be broken into two broad categories. There are news seekers, people who actively search out the news; and there are people whose behavior could be categorized as news bumpers, or who are more likely to discover news by accident as they are doing other things. A year ago in a survey of adults under age 35, we asked people to tell us whether they were more prone to actively seek out news or would describe themselves instead as accidental news consumers.
In that age group, the Millennial generation, 39 percent described themselves as seekers and 60 percent described themselves as bumping into news. In this study of all adults, we asked the question again. The numbers are almost reversed. Among this larger population, 65 percent say they are more inclined to actively seek out news and information while 34 percent report that they mostly just bump into it as they do other things or hear about it from others. Our past research also has found that people do not tend to have a preference for a particular device to getting the news — an idea that stands in some contrast to the television age.
People say they will use whatever device fits the news they are seeking or the context in which they find themselves. This new study reinforces that notion. Television does remain the most popular device for news in the United States; more than 8 in 10 say they have received news from a television in the past week.
More than 6 in 10 say that they have received news from a computer, cellphone, or radio. Data Source: Question: Here are some different devices or technology that you might or might not use to get news and information.
Did you use each device or technology to get news and information in the last week, or did you not? How about [ITEM]? In general, the study finds a strong correlation between how much people value the general principles of trust and their level of news consumption. People who follow news several times a day are more likely than those who do not follow news daily to believe that general principles like accuracy, completeness, transparency, and balance are important.
Data Source: Question: You may trust some sources of news more than others. Thinking about the sources you consider trustworthy, how important is each of the following factors? This correlation also holds when we dig down into the more specific factors associated with trust. For example, those who get the news multiple times a day are more likely to cite accurate facts as very important to them than are those who get news less often 86 percent vs.
By: Steve Waldman. Support high-integrity, independent journalism that serves democracy. Make a gift to Poynter today. The Poynter Institute is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization, and your gift helps us make good journalism better. Tags: Business In Crisis , Commentary , local news. Steve Waldman. Steven Waldman is president of Report for America, which places journalists into local newsrooms, and chair of the Rebuild Local News Coalition. Barbara Allen.
Poynter Power Rankings: Who influenced the media this week? Lesley Stahl, the new boss at Telemundo and a whole lot more. November 12, Tom Jones. Al Tompkins. Kayla Steinberg.
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