Pew Research Center
About a quarter of large U.S. newspapers laid off staff in 2018
Layoffs continue to pummel US newspapers. Roughly a quarter of papers with an average Sunday circulation of 50,000 or more experienced layoffs in 2018. The layoffs come on top of the roughly one-third of papers in the same circulation range that experienced layoffs in 2017. What’s more, the number of jobs typically cut by newspapers in 2018 tended to be higher than in the year before. Mid-market newspapers were the most likely to suffer layoffs in 2018 – unlike in 2017, when the largest papers most frequently saw cutbacks.
Americans have become much less positive about tech companies’ impact on the US
Four years ago, technology companies were widely seen as having a positive impact on the United States. But the share of Americans who hold this view has tumbled 21 percentage points since then, from 71% to 50%. Negative views of technology companies’ impact on the country have nearly doubled during this period, from 17% to 33%, according to a new Pew Research Center survey. Nearly one-in-five (18%) now volunteer their impact has been neither positive nor negative or that it is mixed, or they offer no opinion.
5 key takeaways about the state of the news media in 2018
Some key findings about the state of the news media in 2018:
Trust and Distrust in America
Many Americans see declining levels of trust in the country, whether it is their confidence in the federal government and elected officials or their trust of each other, a new Pew Research Center report finds. And most believe that the interplay between the trust issues in the public and the interpersonal sphere has made it harder to solve some of the country’s problems.
Americans say the nation’s political debate has grown more toxic and ‘heated’ rhetoric could lead to violence (Pew Research Center)
Submitted by Robbie McBeath on Thu, 07/18/2019 - 16:18About one-in-five adult Twitter users in the US follow Trump. More follow Obama.
President Donald Trump is a prolific Twitter user, using the social media site to promote his policies and criticize his opponents. But determining just how many Americans follow President Trump on the platform is more challenging than it may sound: Twitter, after all, is an international platform used by institutional accounts and bots as well as living, breathing people in the US. A new Pew Research Center analysis estimates that around one-in-five adult Twitter users in the US (19%) follow Trump’s personal account on the platform, @realDonaldTrump.
U.S. newsroom employment has dropped a quarter since 2008, with greatest decline at newspapers
Newsroom employment across the US continues to decline, driven primarily by job losses at newspapers. And even though digital-native news outlets have experienced some recent growth in employment, they have added too few newsroom positions to make up for recent losses in the broader industry, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment Statistics survey data.
Republicans far more likely than Democrats to say fact-checkers tend to favor one side (Pew Research Center)
Submitted by Robbie McBeath on Thu, 06/27/2019 - 09:14![](https://www.benton.org/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/GettyImages-494325565_1.jpg?itok=4aeEgUTR)
Public Highly Critical of State of Political Discourse in the US
Large majorities say the tone and nature of political debate in the US has become more negative in recent years – as well as less respectful, less fact-based and less substantive. One takeaway: By a wide margin (66% to 32%), more people say social media companies have a responsibility to remove offensive content from their platforms than say they do not have this responsibility. But just 31% have a great deal or fair amount of confidence in these companies to determine what offensive content should be removed.