• by Erik Sass , Staff Writer, February 10, 2016

Inspiring equal parts awe and horror, the quadrennial orgy of spin, lies and patriotic pablum that is the U.S. presidential election is obviously a news bonanza. But that doesn’t mean every news medium benefits equally. According to a new report from Pew Research Center, newspapers are lagging far behind other providers as a source of political news.

According to Pew, 91% of American adults received some news about the presidential election in the last week (the other 9% presumably being the fabled “low information” or “no information” voters).  When it came to specific news providers, 24% of respondents said they considered cable TV news the “most helpful” source of information, followed by social media at 14%, local TV also at 14%, Web sites or apps, at 13%, and radio at 11%.

Further down the totem pole were network nightly news, at 10% and late-night TV comedy at 3%. Only then did the local newspaper appear in the Pew ranking, equal with late-night comedy at 3%. National newspapers were even lower down, cited by just 2% of respondents as the most helpful source of political news.

Even allowing that some of the Web sites or apps cited may be digital outlets for newspapers, that still puts them after social media and local TV as trusted news sources.

Pew noted that media preferences for political news vary along age lines pretty much as one might expect.

Thus, cable TV news is most popular among respondents ages 65 and up, at 43%, followed by network nightly news at 17%, local TV at 10%, and the local paper in print at 6% for that demo. Cable news also ranked highest for respondents ages 50-64 (25%) and 30-49 (21%).

By contrast, social media was the top source of political news for respondents ages 18-29, cited by 35%, followed by news Web sites or apps at 18%.