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Digital environment is now an essential component in how Americans discover local events and issues in the news. Today, as many U.S. adults say they like to acquire their local news online as prefer to do so over the tv.

Chart showing make fish an overwhelming most of Americans reach least some local news online.

Specifically, when asked which pathways they like to use for local news – the tv set, the internet (through social networking or websites/apps), print or radio – nearly precisely the same percentage of U.S. adults say they prefer an internet method (37% total, including 23% who favor news websites or apps and 15% who name social media) as say they prefer television (41%). Far fewer prefer print newspapers (13%) or radio (8%). This close split between TV and internet based pathways tracks closely with how Americans access news more generally.

Beyond digital to be the preferred pathway, 89% of Americans get at least some local news digitally and about four-in-ten (41%) achieve this often. This in time breaks down to about equal shares who are often local news specifically from social websites (25%) and online news websites or mobile apps (26%).

Even as Tv producers certainly are a powerhouse source for local news, they are still accessed primarily from the analog format of television sets; this is especially valid of radio news stations. Fully 76% of people who get news from local TV stations and 81% of those that get news from the air primarily visit these providers over the traditional pathway.

But other news providers possess a substantial portion of their audience who access them online. Some of those who get local news from daily newspapers, for example, 43% primarily access them online while 54% have them mainly in a print format. And up to 50 % of people who get local news from newsletters or listservs (49%) do so primarily online.

Chart showing that few Americans are digital-only or analog-only in relation to local news.

At the same time, few Americans are fully analog or fully digital in how they get local news. Instead, most (68%) mix online and offline pathways, for instance, switching on the television set to observe their local news station but browsing on the internet to learn the daily newspaper and neighborhood listserv.

Just 7% of Americans indicate which they don’t use anything but digital pathways as their primary access points. Three times numerous U.S. adults (21%) mainly access all providers they get news from using an analog pathway – though this can be still another clear minority.

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