Study finds many couldn’t care less if newspapers closed

A study by the Pew Research Center has found that many people in the United States couldn’t care less if their local newspaper closed.

Fewer than half of Americans (43%) say that losing their local newspaper would hurt civic life in their community “a lot.” Even fewer (33%) say they would personally miss reading the local newspaper a lot if it were no longer available.

From the results:

Not unexpectedly, those who get local news regularly from newspapers are much more likely than those who read them less often to see the potential shutdown of a local paper as a significant loss. More than half of regular newspaper readers (56%) say that if the local newspaper they read most often no longer published — either in print or online — it would hurt the civic life of the community a lot; an almost identical percentage (55%) says they would personally miss reading the paper a lot if it were no longer available.

The study also found a not unexpected age gap

Not unexpectedly, far fewer young people than older Americans say they would miss their local newspaper a lot if it were to close. Less than a quarter of those younger than age 40 (23%) say they would miss the local newspaper they read most often a lot if it were to go out of business or shut down. That compares with 33% of those ages 40 to 64 and 55% of those age 65 and older.

The full results at Pew here.