In “Cable, Internet Gain on Campaign Trail,” an article on p. D1 of USA Today yesterday, Peter Johnson leads with the following:
Cable news and the Internet are increasingly sources of campaign information as smaller numbers of Americans tune into local and broadcast news or read newspapers, a Pew study finds.
Just 23% of Americans ages 18-29 say they regularly get their election news from broadcast news, down from 39% in 2000. Local news and newspapers also showed declines among that age group, 13% and 9%, respectively. Meanwhile, overall use of the Internet and cable for campaign news rose 4% since 2000.
In an article on Brian Williams, the anchor-to-be on NBC’s Nightly News, on p. D3 of the same paper on the same day, the same Peter Johnson reports that Williams
rejects the theory that the Big Three newscasts are dinosaurs and that it’s only a matter of time before the Internet and cable news become the main source of news in America. “I’m not fond of the dinosaur argument,” says Williams….
So, what Johnson reports as a fact on p. D1 he quotes, without comment, Williams rejecting as a theory on p. D3. Maybe the editors were pre-occupied with p. 2, or something.
INTERESTING ADDENDUM
I read both of these articles in “hard copy” yesterday, in some waiting room. When I went to the the USA Today site to find them today, I found that they were “archived” and that I would have to pay to retrieve the full text. A search on Google News, however, pulled them right up, with no fee.
Go figure.
