Where are you getting your news?

Consumers Trust Local News Sites
Marketers will be most impressed by the advertising results reported of news viewers: "Advertising on local TV sites proves to have a strong impact on consumers. A leading 17% of respondents say they can trust products and services advertised on local TV news sites, and a leading 22% say these sites keep them in the know about products and brands in the marketplace."

But, from a PR perspective most helpful are the study results that "indicate a commanding 81% of study respondents consider local TV news to be their most important TV news source. In contrast, 13% selected cable news and only 6% said broadcast network news."
 
Where do I want my pitches carried? Where do I want my stories reported? Within my local news. Not only do viewers value local sources as their most important place to get community information, half also report that they trust their local anchors more, and that they engage the viewers leading them to WANT to watch more local news, according to the study by Frank M. Magid Associates, Inc. and Hearst Television, Inc.
Other study results of interest are from Pew's research  on where Americans get their news and summarized here. The report indicates that we access several sources to compile our news. Only single digits of us--7 percent--retrieve their news from a single source. Sources range from the traditional sources of television, radio and newspapers, to online sources, with the internet now ranking third most popular. Again, as noted above with the most trusted sources, local television grabs the highest ranking, with 78 percent of news consumers, followed by the national networks at 73 percent and online at 61 percent, according to Pew. Most interesting is that we aren't passive news consumers, but that a third of us online are commenting, posting, tagging or creating news content.

Where do you prefer to find your news? For me, having multiple sources rounds out coverage, feeding details that time and space constraints, reporting priorities or editorial perspectives may affect news from the local beat to the global pulse. There's nothing better than the morning cup of java coupled with a skim of the local headlines in the Maryland Independent, followed by an online review of  The Washington Post or The New York Times headlines and then a drive into work accompanied by NPR's news and analysis to feel informed for the day.