• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, Yesterday

Pew Research has continued parsing news audiences — this time by age.

One thing is clear: they're not as young as they used to be. 

The youngest audience is that of the Spanish-language TV network Univision — 39. Hispanics constitute the youngest audience. 

Daily Wire readers have a median age of 42, and The New York Times has a median age of 43. Yet they are still relatively young.

In contrast, Conservative Newsmax reaches people age 63 and for Breitbart, age 62.

The median age for U.S. adults is 47.

“Though Republicans overall tend to be older than Democrats, Newsmax and Breitbart stand out even compared with other sources that have audiences with a similar partisan lean,” Pew notes.

The big TV broadcast networks also skew older: CBS News (58), NBC News (57) and ABC News (55). Among cable networks, Fox News has a median age of 55 and CNN (50). 

Overall, 12% of Americans do not regularly get news from any of the 30 major news sources asked about in the survey. But that number rises to 19% among Gen Z ages 18-29, and 16% for those ages 30-49. 

In comparison, 7% of the Gen X age group consumes no news from these sources along with 4% of people 65+.

What does this mean?

“This pattern reflects the growing proportion of young Americans who are turning to newer information sources, including social media and news influencers,” Pew writes. Adults under 30 are more likely than any other age group to turn to social media for news and less likely than older adults to get news from print publications, radio or television.”

The solution for newsrooms may be to hire more Gen Z reporters who are comfortable working in social media and who understand the generational issues.