As a news source

Mar 1, 2010 14:21 GMT  ·  By

Just like with almost everything, the Internet has had quite an effect on the way people consume news. And it's not just that they have another avenue for news, the very way people get their news has changed in the past years. The latest Pew Research Center Internet study shows that US consumers get their news from a variety of sources and very few have a clear or exclusive preference for one source.

"The overwhelming majority of Americans (92%) use multiple platforms to get news on a typical day, including national TV, local TV, the internet, local newspapers, radio, and national newspapers. Some 46% of Americans say they get news from four to six media platforms on a typical day. Just 7% get their news from a single media platform on a typical day," the report says.

That in itself is telling, but it's not exactly revolutionary. The interesting part is how much the Internet has grown to become a major source of news, the third after local and national TV stations, and by a small margin too. Most Americans, 78 percent, get news from a local TV station, while 73 percent say they get it from the big national broadcasters or cable networks.

Finally, 61 percent go online for at least part of their news. That is significantly more than the 50 percent who get their news from local newspapers and well ahead of the 17 percent who read large national newspapers. Perhaps the bigger thing to take away from this is that people don't rely on just one medium for news.

When it comes to the web itself, the trend continues. People don't really have a single website they prefer, though they generally limit to just a few sites. "Most news consumers utilize multiple platforms for news, but online their range of specific outlets is limited. The majority of online news consumers (57%) say they routinely rely on just two to five websites for their news. Only 11% say they get their news from more than five websites, and 21% regularly rely on just one site," the report also reads.