Newspaper Sites Most Trusted Local News Source

NYT

Newspaper Web sites are the single most-visited and most-trusted source of online local news, according to a survey of 3,050 adult Internet users by comScore conducted on behalf of the Newspaper Association of America.

Overall, 57% of respondents said local newspaper Web sites were their No. 1 destination for various kinds of local information -- more than all other online local news media combined. The survey also revealed high rankings for the trustworthiness of advertising on local newspaper Web sites.

Breaking local content and advertising down into various categories, 29% said newspaper Web sites were their primary destination for local news, 27% ranked them first for local sports, 26% for local entertainment, and 39% for local classifieds.

Setting aside duplicates, this comes to well over half of those surveyed. The proportion of respondents ranking newspaper Web sites as their primary destination for local content rose to 60% among college-educated respondents and 63% among well-to-do households.

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The NAA noted that newspaper Web sites beat various competitors -- most notably the Web sites of local TV stations -- across the board in terms of trustworthiness as well. Local newspapers were chosen as the most trustworthy source of local news by 34% of respondents, compared to 23% for local TV news sites.

They also ranked ahead of local TV news sites in local sports (30%-24%), local entertainment (30%-20%), and local classifieds (42%-13%). For advertising in general, 36% said they considered local newspaper Web sites to be trustworthy advertising media, compared to 23% for local TV news sites and just 12% for online portals in general.

At first glance, newspaper Web sites seem to be sitting pretty, but newspaper publishers have struggled to monetize large online audiences at anywhere near the rate of their legacy print product.

According to the NAA, in the first three quarters of 2009, newspapers' online advertising revenues were still just 10% of their total advertising revenues -- after a decade spent building online audiences and advertising programs.

1 comment about "Newspaper Sites Most Trusted Local News Source ".
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  1. Arul Sundaram from Internet Broadcasting, February 26, 2010 at 10:43 a.m.

    Erik - good overview of the data, but if you're going to highlight the idea that Newspaper sites beat TV station websites, you should also point out the data in the study favoring TV stations (and other web properties).

    The NAA's own study found that Local TV Station websites were the number 1 destination for local news! And, the areas in which newspaper beat TV, the reality was that the data showed the two to be neck and neck.

    The bigger message in the study to me was the strength of the competition facing local media online. I'm not sure what this study included in "local information", but the latest comScore Local Markets data shows a jump in usage of weather sites. This is the type of utility that local sites could and should own. Further, it seems the survey left out ESPN when looking at the sports category. comScore shows that usage of Sports sites spiked this fall, but no corresponding spike was seen in local media sites. These are big opportunities, but need to be acted upon. Here's a fuller analysis of the Local Markets data:

    http://www.ibsys.com/blog/february/

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