Stuck in the Web: News junkies get their fixes online

S.J. CAHN

I came across a study this week that caught my eye, largely because

our month-old website is still a main focus among editors in the

newsroom.

“The Internet and Campaign 2004: A Look Back at the Campaigners,”

by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, includes some

pretty startling findings from the 2004 presidential race.

Chief among them is the growth of the Internet as a primary source

of news about the race for the White House. According to the study,

more people turned to the Internet than the radio for that

information, 18% to 17%.

Now, that number -- 18% -- seems dwarfed by the number of people

who relied on television, 78%, and newspapers, 39%. As an aside, the

breakdown of the TV number has 36% turning to the networks compared

to 47% tuning into cable shows.

But here’s the interesting number, especially for Newport- Mesa:

In homes with broadband Internet access (about 27% of American

homes), 38% turned to their computer for news compared to 36% turning

to newspapers.

Now, it’s hard to say exactly how many people in Newport-Mesa are

also wired via cable or broadband, but way back in 2003, 29% of

Newport homes already had high-speed Internet access, a number that’s

undoubtedly higher today. I couldn’t find a hard or fast number for

Costa Mesa -- and Comcast doesn’t give out those numbers -- though

there are about 23,000 cable TV subscribers in the city.

My suspicion, though, is that plenty of Daily Pilot readers also

have high-speed Internet access. And suburban, college-educated

people were the most likely to access news via the Internet. That

means, according to Pew, that Newport-Mesa residents are increasingly

using the Internet to get political news.

And that’s as good a reason as any you could conceive for why

we’ve created a website that’s more under our control.

The Pew study also shows that quite a few people, 24%, went most

often to candidate websites to get news. Major media organizations

still dominated this part of the landscape, being the most often

visited site of 43% of those surveyed. Another 28% went to online

services such as Yahoo or Google and 11% went to a local news

organization.

That 24% number really jumps out, I think. It was driven by early

interest in former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean’s scream-ended run for

the Democratic presidential nomination, in two different ways.

First, the Dean campaign’s emphasis on Internet activism was

successful, thus raising the number. Second, even after Dean’s

campaign collapsed, those left -- eventually Sen. John Kerry and

President Bush -- saw how successful the Internet could be as a

political tool. They, then, started using it, thus driving more

people to their websites.

Locally, we’ve seen in each of the last three election cycles

(going back to 2000) an increasing number of candidates with

websites. This study suggests that these sites can be dramatically

successful in providing information to voters and, perhaps more

importantly, in raising money. Out of 63 million online consumers of

political news, 4 million donated money.

That should wake up present and future politicians.

This study, of course, tracks solely the most national of all

votes. Results might vary on our more local level. But, still,

something for journalists, politicians and consumers of news (the

newsman in me doesn’t like that description too much) to think about.

To look at the study yourself, check out

https://www.pewinternet.org.

* S.J. CAHN is the managing editor. He may be reached at (714)

966-4607 or by e-mail at s.j.cahn@latimes.com.