Media & Communication

The data used in this report was collected from nine surveys conducted between November 2019 and November 2020 on Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP). The surveys were all a part of the Center’s American News Pathways project, in which the same 12,043 panelists were surveyed repeatedly between November 2019 and November 2020 on […] The post Methodology appeared first on Pew Research Center's Journalism Project.

The American News Pathways project was made possible by The Pew Charitable Trusts. Pew Research Center is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts, its primary funder. This initiative is a collaborative effort based on the input and analysis of the following individuals. Find related reports online at https://www.pewresearch.org/topics/election-news-pathways/. Research Team Amy Mitchell, Director, Journalism […] The post Acknowledgments appeared first on Pew Research Center's Journalism Project.

At three points during the 2020 election season, the American News Pathways project classified Americans’ news diets according to the political leanings of the audiences of the news outlets they used to get political and election news. For the analysis in Chapter 1, respondents’ news diets from three surveys conducted in November 2019, September 2020 […] The post Appendix: Measuring news sources used during the 2020 presidential election appeared first on Pew Research Center's Journalism Project.

In March 2020, as the World Health Organization was declaring COVID-19 a global pandemic and its spread was accelerating in the U.S., Republicans and Democrats were paying similar levels of attention to news coverage of the outbreak. At that time, 53% of Democrats (including those who lean Democratic) were following news of the pandemic very […] The post 5. Republicans’ views on COVID-19 shifted over course of 2020; Democrats’ hardly budged appeared first on Pew Research Center's Journalism Project.

Beyond the differences in perceptions between partisans – and within parties based on people’s news sources – those who turn to social media as the most common way they get their political news stand out in some ways from those who get news from other pathways (news websites and apps; local, cable, and network TV; […] The post 4. Americans who mainly got news via social media knew less about politics and current events, heard more about some unproven stories appeared first on Pew Research Center's Journalism Project.

Unprecedented national news events, a sharp and sometimes hostile political divide, and polarized news streams created a ripe environment for misinformation and made-up news in 2020. The truth surrounding the two intense, yearlong storylines – the coronavirus pandemic and the presidential election – was often a matter of dispute, whether due to genuine confusion or […] The post 3. Misinformation and competing views of reality abounded throughout 2020 appeared first on Pew Research Center's Journalism Project.

Americans inhabited different information environments, with wide gaps in how they viewed the election and COVID-19. The post How Americans Navigated the News in 2020: A Tumultuous Year in Review appeared first on Pew Research Center's Journalism Project.

While large partisan gaps emerged in views of two dominant stories of last year – the COVID-19 pandemic and the presidential election – there also was one clear and consistent difference within a single party. As a whole, Republicans who turned to Donald Trump as a key source of news about these events had different […] The post 2. Republicans who relied on Trump for news in 2020 diverged from others in GOP in views of COVID-19, election appeared first on Pew Research Center's Journalism Project.

At the outset of the election year, a Pew Research Center study found Democrats and Republicans increasingly relied on two divergent media ecosystems. During the course of the presidential campaign, the Americans News Pathways project reexamined these news habits multiple times, with a particular focus on partisans who got more news from outlets with audiences […] The post 1. About a quarter of Republicans, Democrats consistently turned only to news outlets whose audiences aligned with them politically in 2020 appeared first on Pew Research Center's Journalism Project.

People have questions. Journalists have answers. But it can be surprisingly difficult to connect the two. Someone wondering, for example, what COVID-19 testing options are available in their neighborhood can easily miss that story from their local news source, and they probably won’t go digging around on its website to find it. Helpful information can […]

2020 was a hinge moment in American history and for journalism. As the year passes, we wanted to take a moment to thank those with whom we were fortunate enough to collaborate. If fact-based journalism is to survive and serve democracy, it will owe much to the expertise, dedication, insight, leadership and passion of those […]

Editor’s Note: The American Press Institute is exploring how news organizations are reimagining opinion journalism to support constructive conversations in their communities. This essay by Julie Hart, digital editor for The Laconia Daily Sun in Laconia, New Hampshire, follows aseries of 2019 essaysandsummit. *** Our small, community newspaper in rural New Hampshire has always stuck […]

A new column from APIExecutive Director Tom Rosenstiel, published in partnership with the Poynter Institute, about the press and politics, culture and media ethics, technology and the search for sustainability for news. Today, in partnership with Poynter, I launch a new column. In the coming months, it will cover a range of matters — the […]

A core goal of journalism is to lift up underheard voices. Sometimes, the best way to do that is to give those voices a stage and a microphone — and then get out of the way. That’s what happened at the culmination of a yearlong effort between Idaho Education News, a nonprofit news site, and […]

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