The more the so-called “news” SCREAMS at me, with the intent of raising my blood pressure, the quicker and more abruptly I turn it off and/or block it.
Don’t forget that one of the very first things to become enshittified and weaponized by 24-hour television and the internet, was infotainment.
Have you ever thought that if more people had watched those news shows that didn't have screaming and shouting and fearmongering and just plain old news when they were still on (or watched the ones that are still on), we would have had more news on TV and less shouting?
Reddits api changes killed it for me personally. I got most my news from Reddit. Lemmy and Google News feed give me some, but nothing like they used to.
A big flaw in this study is they are comparing an election year to a non election year. There’s a lot of things Americans do differently during an election year. Example, they watch more SNL and late night comedy too
The failure to meaningfully attract new audience outside social media has been one of the biggest failures of news organisations in the age of internet.
It is also unfortunate that lesser number of people are willing to seek out news directly than before. I know very few people among younger generations who consumes news as a habit, like how people used to read newspapers or tune into TV news bulletins.
It looks like this is an annual study, and it shows an annual decline, including on 2020. Essentially, there is a year to year drop, even from 2019-2020. I'm not sure what to draw from this beyond what they state, but it's a sustained drop across all quantifiable factors it seems.
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