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Maybe Retiring Guy won't be going to the movies tonight after all.

No Room for Darwin

Link to March 5 The Raw Story post, "Top US home-school texts dismiss evolution".

Excerpt: Home-school mom Susan Mule wishes she hadn't taken a friend's advice and tried a textbook from a popular Christian publisher for her 10-year-old's biology lessons.

Mule's precocious daughter Elizabeth excels at science and has been studying tarantulas since she was 5. But she watched Elizabeth's excitement turn to confusion when they reached the evolution section of the book from Apologia Educational Ministries, which disputed Charles Darwin's theory.

"I thought she was going to have a coronary," Mule said of her daughter, who is now 16 and taking college courses in Houston. "She's like, 'This is not true!'"

Christian-based materials dominate a growing home-school education market that encompasses more than 1.5 million students in the U.S. And for most home-school parents, a Bible-based version of the Earth's creation is exactly what they want. Federal statistics from 2007 show 83 percent of home-schooling parents want to give their children "religious or moral instruction."

"The majority of home-schoolers self-identify as evangelical Christians," said Ian Slatter, a spokesman for the Home School Legal Defense Association. "Most home-schoolers will definitely have a sort of creationist component to their home-school program."

Best Practices: Library Director Spearheads Local Business Promotion

Hammond Community Library
The Heart of the Community

Link to March 4 St. Paul Pioneer Press article, "Daylong event puts Hammond, Wis., retail in spotlight".

Excerpt: The stores and services of Hammond, Wis., will strut their stuff later this month during a first-time event to promote the village's business community.

More than 50 area businesses and groups have registered to participate in Showcase Hammond on March 20 at St. Croix Central High School. The event will feature demonstrations throughout the day on everything from llama fiber to martial arts, as well as seminars and door prizes.

Michelle Johnson, director of the Hammond Community Library, helped come up with the idea after hearing people tell her they need to "drive to the cities for so and so." [Emphasis added.]

"I'm like, 'No, you don't — you have it right here in Hammond,' " she said.

Residents of Hammond, which Johnson called "very much a bedroom town," often aren't aware of area businesses because they're run out of people's homes, she said. Johnson is looking forward to showing people what they've been missing.

"I'm hoping we can educate the area on what Hammond has to offer," said Johnson.

Retiring Guy thinks this promotion is an incredibly effective way to promote the library's mission.

Outpouring of Support for Wheaton( IL) Public Library

Link to March 3 Daily Herald article, "Residents rally around Wheaton Library".

Excerpt: Dozens of Wheaton Public Library supporters came together Monday to urge the city council to save the library from the budget ax.

Facing a projected $1.5 million deficit in the city's 2010-11 budget, council members are considering is a plan to reduce the library's allocation of property tax dollars by $300,000.

In response, most of the roughly 90 people who attended Monday's council meeting were residents opposed to seeing the library's $4.2 million budget cut. Some even said the library should get more than the $3.4 million in property tax dollars it now receives.

"Your job is not just to balance the budget," resident Joe Jeffrey told city council members. "It's to do what's best for the city while balancing the budget."

In addition to Wheaton's schools and churches, Jeffrey said, the library is a jewel that makes the community stand out.

Illinois Library Systems Still Await the Remaining 65% of Their State Funding

Link to March 3 Chicago Tribune article, "Illinois libraries waiting for state to pay up".

Excerpt: [Gail] Bush [, a trustee with the Evanston Public Library and president-elect of the Illinois Library Association, a statewide advocacy organization] and other experts from north suburban libraries met earlier this month in Buffalo Grove with state legislators to discuss the bleak financial picture and possible remedies.

The North Suburban Library System, or NSLS, is one of nine regional library systems that form the cooperative state library system. Based in Wheeling, the NSLS includes more than 650 member libraries that serve more than 2 million people in 83 communities in Cook, Lake, Kane and McHenry counties.

Officials said the group has received only 35 percent of its annual budget of nearly $2 million.

At the same time, the cooperative Illinois Library Systems also has received only 35 percent of its total annual budget and is waiting for the remaining 65 percent due — $10 million.

Cynthia Fuerst, director of the Vernon Area Public Library District in Lincolnshire, a member library of the NSLS, gave an emotional plea for help to the more than dozen legislators who attended.

"Our library systems are being starved to death," said Fuerst, her voice cracking. "Funding for library systems has not increased since 1993. Even in the good economic times that our state has had in the mid-1990s and late '90s, library systems did not see one dollar increase in their funding."

The Illinois Library Association endorses an income tax increase to support the services the state needs to provide.


Related articles:

State funding shortage may doom library systems. (2/14/2010)

"Save Illinois Libraries" Campaign Shakes Loose Some Funds. (1/22/2010)

Save Illinois Libraries: Tweeting Up a Storm of Support. (1/20/2010)

Sarah Long: Illinois Regional Library Systems and Boiling Frogs. (1/13/2010)

lllinois Regional Multi-Type Library Systems Hit with Cut in Funding. (8/13/2009)

Acclaimed but Not Widely Read Author Experiments with Self-Publishing

LINKcat status report (49 library locations)

Link to March 5 Publishers Weekly article, "John Edgar Wideman to Self-Publish New Book via Lulu.com".

How desperate are newspapers for ad revenue?

Link to March 5 Columbia Journalism Review post, "Rent a Newspaper Flack".

Thomas Lothian Announces Retirement from Wisconsin State Assembly

Link to March 4 news release.

Wisconsin State Assembly Districts (large pdf file)

Wisconsin's 32nd Assembly District

(click on map to enlarge)

According to his biography in the Wisconsin Blue Book, Lothian was born in Cleveland, Ohio, graduated from Cleveland Heights High School in 1947, earned a B.A. in education at Ohio State University (1953) and an M.A. in chemistry at the Illinois Institute of Technology. He is a former assistant professor and administrator at the University of Illinois-Chicago. He was first elected to the Assembly in 2002.

The 32nd Assembly district includes the libraried communities of

Darien

Delavan

Fontana

Genoa City

Lake Geneva

Sharon

Walworth

Williams Bay

Wednesday/Thursday Miscellany

The media as your transcription service. (Critical thinking skills? Meh!)

Oy vey, Rahway.

Why did it take so long for Retiring Guy to figure this one out?

Take Your Child to Work Day. (Probably not on the list of ideas, projects, and activities.)

Ironically, there is a God!

A Skeptic in August 2009, but Now I'm a Believer

Link to New York Times March 3 Room for Debate: "College Degrees Without Going to Class".

Excerpt: Online courses have been around for nearly two decades, but enrollment has soared in recent years as more universities increase their offerings. More than 4.6 million college students (about one in four) were taking at least one online course in 2008, a 17 percent increase over 2007.

Institutions like Rutgers University and the University of California system are looking at expanding online courses as a way to keep down tuition costs or increase revenues. Recently, Rutgers said it would triple online revenues from $20.5 million to $60 million in five years.

Who benefits most from online courses — students or colleges? Are online classes as educationally effective as in-classroom instruction? Should more post-secondary education take place online?

Retiring Guy has, as they say in the vernacular, been there done that. When it comes to distance education..... If both teachers and students are prepared, responsive, and engaged, things run remarkably well.

Folks who say distance education is inferior to classroom instruction are walking through life with their eyes closed. It's not a one-size-fits-all world.


Related article:

Todd Gilman on Teaching Online Courses. (2/23/2010)

The Onion Asks the Important Question

How Will The End Of Print Journalism Affect Old Loons Who Hoard Newspapers?

Lessons to be Learned in a Social Media Age

Link to March 4 Mashable post by Dallas Lawrence, Chair of the Social and Digital Media Practice at Levick Strategic Communications, "3 Crisis Survival Lessons for the Social Media Age".

Excerpt: If there was any doubt before last year as to social media’s ability to exacerbate reputation crises, 2009 settled the debate. In just that one year, Domino’s, United Airlines, and Tiger Woods were but a few of the headlining examples that were variously infected by the viral bug. These global brands made their problems even worse with sloppy responses to online news reports, blog posts, Facebook updates, YouTube videos, and Twitter entries.

The Lessons:

1. Size Doesn't Matter. (Toyota)

2. What Got You Here, Won't Get You There. (Johnson & Johnson)

3. You Can Not Advertise Out Of Crisis. (Tiger Woods)

Waunakee Library Director Describes Crowded Conditions

Link to March 3 Waunakee Tribune eNews article, "Waunakee library among county's smallest".

Excerpt: Susan Hedrick, Waunakee Public Library director, called that facility “the fast food restaurant of libraries,” noting that the while service is good, it lacks many amenities provided by other libraries.

Hedrick was invited to the Feb. 25 Waunakee Rotary Club meeting to discuss the village’s need for a larger library space.

She began by illustrating the space constraints there that few see. The library’s 14 employees work in an 8- by-11-foot space. The office also holds an IT (information technology) closet, along with a storage area for staff to store personal belongings while at work.

The Waunakee library shelves are full, Hedrick said, and the librarians are approaching the point where to add a new book, an existing book must be discarded.

The shelves sets are 6 feet high, and books are stored on the bottom and top shelves, making them difficult for many to reach or to even read the titles. Senior citizens also must bend down to the floor to pick out some titles, she said.

"Prehab": Is It a Contender?

Link to March 4 New York Times article, "Why His Face May End Up In Webster's".

Excerpt: Sometimes you hear a word for the first time and think: “Of course.” How better to describe Paris Hilton than as a “celebutante” or the frequent tabloid target Alec Baldwin as “the bloviator”? (Thanks, New York Post!)

[Prehab made its debut on Feb. 23, the handiwork of GlasgowRose, a commenter on Gawker, after a publicist for Charlie Sheen announced that the star of “Two and a Half Men” was entering rehab as a “preventative measure.” The announcement was supposed to deflect rumors that the actor had returned to his hard-partying ways. But instead, Gawker wrote a satirical post defining prehab as a vehicle for celebrity spin. “Get the ‘rehab’ career bump without actually being an addict,” Gawker wrote.

After being picked up by a number of blogs, including newser.com and thefrisky.com, prehab quickly moved to mainstream news outlets, including The Boston Herald, where one columnist questioned whether prehab was “the new personal leave,” and The Daily News, where it was described as a “celebrity thing.” ]


Will Charlie Sheen earn his place in the dictionary?

Here's how it works at Merriam-Webster -- in much the same way as it did when Retiring Guy worked there from March 1976 to August 1978.

The full explanation is here.

From the tone of today's Times article, you might assume that "celebutante" is a relatively new coinage.

Not so. It made its first appearance in print in 1939.
Sorry, Paris, but you're just one in a long line of celebutantes. Brenda Frazier, featured on the November 14, 1938, cover of LIFE magazine, set the gold standard.

As for "bloviate", it already has a long and colorful history. Retiring Guy thinks Rush Limbaugh's picture should be included with this dictionary entry.
Here's a partial list from Merriam-Webster's new words and phrases for 2009.

Will we see "prehab" on the 2010 list?

Stay tuned, word mavens!

Touring the Detroit Public Library

Link to March 2 Detroit Moxie post, "Book Love: The Detroit Public Library".

Excerpt: The main branch of the Detroit Public Library is nestled in Midtown, the cultural hub of the city, and the first thing you notice is the amazing architecture, both inside and out. Cass Gilbert designed the early Italian Renaissance-style structure, which opened in 1921. The building expanded in 1963 when wings were added to both the north and south ends of the library.

27 Minutes Ago: The Bedford Public Library Quadruple Post

Related article:

Let's not panic, folks, the library staff did what they're trained to do. (3/3/2010)

Let's not panic, folks, the library staff did what they're trained to do

Link to March 3 WSLS-TV report, "Library computers have filters for children, not adults". (via Twitter)

Excerpt: The arrest of a man at the Bedford Public Library on child pornography charges has some asking about filters on library computers.

Bedford Public Library director Peggy Bias tells WSLS there are filters on library computers, that limit what children can look at online. However, federal law requires the filter be removed for adults.

A library card is required to use a library computer. When a card is scanned, a card holder’s age pops up in the system. If the card holder is an adult, the block is lifted.

When computer users sign on, they must agree to the library’s computer policy. The policy says anyone looking up inappropriate material will be asked to leave. If the material is illegal, like child pornography, a library worker will call police.

Bias says library workers are trained to spot anything inappropriate on the computers. It was a library worker who called police to report Mark Reynolds last Thursday. Investigators say Reynolds left the library before officers arrived but returned the following day. A worker called police again on Friday. When investigators got to the library, they say they witnessed Reynolds attempting to download child pornography.

Link to Internet Use Policy.

Excerpt: Adult library users will select for themselves whether to use filtered or unfiltered access to the Internet. An adult must sign a BPLS Adult Internet Use Agreement, indicating they have read this policy and agree to abide by it and future versions of the policy as a condition of using the library’s Internet Access Service.

Do you know your geography?: America's most-wired cities

Link to March 2 Forbes article.

Excerpt: Raleigh's win means it ranks higher overall than any other U.S. city in three measures: [1] broadband penetration, [2] broadband access and [3] plentiful wi-fi hot spots. Taken together, the factors point to a populace that readily uses high-speed Internet inside and outside the home.

At stake is more than just bragging rights. As the U.S. formulates a national broadband plan designed to connect the entire country to fast, affordable Internet, Raleigh and other top-ranking Wired Cities could serve as models for change.

Though a surprise winner, Raleigh boasts plenty of technology assets, including a high concentration of info-tech companies, research universities and state government offices.

Afternoon break: It all started at the library

Link to March 3 boston.com article, "Wink, wink, nudge, nudge".

Excerpt: Wink is a roving supper with no physical address. There is no website, only its creator, whom we’ll call “chef X,’’ an anonymous e-mail, and an ever-shifting array of cobbled-together place settings in an ever-shifting array of homes around Boston. X has clandestinely descended upon these kitchens some 60 times over the past three years.

“Restaurants are great - it’s loud, they give you a menu, and then they bring you whatever you want. And dinner parties are great, but then you have one person paying this huge sum of money. I guess this is my way of creating something sort of in between,’’ says X. “My favorite conversation is hearing everyone sit around and say, ‘So how do you know about this place?’ ’’

I first meet chef X in a local library and he slips me a brown business card with nothing but his name typewritten on the front (that is, written with a typewriter), and the words “wink supper’’ [paging Merriam-Webster] scrawled on the back in longhand. I flip it over a couple of times. “And how do I get in touch with you?’’ I say. “You don’t,’’ he says, sliding a white pad of paper and a pen across the table. “I’ll e-mail you.’’ [Emphases added.]




Sassy!

Hot enough for you?

From Twitpic.

Caption: "I need to use this privacy screen for my laptop in the library."

Tuesday/Wednesday Miscellany

Books now outnumber games on the iPhone.

Why would anyone at Cleveland Public Library think this is a good idea?

Why would anyone, anywhere, not think this is a good idea? Most of what we get is junk anyway.

54% - 15% - Online Shopping OK.

At least he wasn't doing any lewd acts. (Bozeman Police Department report for 3/2/2010)

Muslims help lift library ban on Christian poster.

Duh! (It's the system we seem to be stuck with.)

It's the only way chickens can fly.

Management lessons from Slyderville.

Kindles a Big Hit at Oregon State University Library

OSU Libraries

The details:

Academic Library Sees Big Demand For Kindles. (The Kept-Up Academic Librarian)

University library sees demand for Kindles soar. (eCampus News)

Marathon County Public Library Promotes Its 24/7 Location

MCPL website: The library location that never closes

Link to March 3 column by MCPL Director Phyllis Christensen in the Wausau Daily Herald, "10th library 'location' stays open 24/7".

Excerpt: Marathon County Public Library is known for its nine libraries in Athens, Edgar, Hatley, Marathon, Mosinee, Rothschild, Spencer, Stratford, and Wausau.

These are the buildings where people of all ages come. Children come for story times. Teens come for special programs and to play games. Adults come for book discussions. All ages come to check out books, movies, CDs and video games; to use computers; for help with homework and questions.

The buildings are warm and welcoming, and we are always glad to see our customers pass through the doors. However, buildings close, and staff go home at the end of the day.

MCPL has a 10th location that never closes. It's our Web page at www.mcpl.us. Access to many of the same information sources (databases) that staff use to answer questions is available on our Web page. One extensively used resource is EbscoHost, a collection of several databases of magazine articles and other research sources. It is provided to libraries throughout Wisconsin by state funds to give access to quality online information resources to Wisconsin residents.

Barry Hannah, 1942-2010

The Barry Hannah LINKcat Status Report

Link to March 3 New York Times obituary, "Barry Hannah, Darkly Comic Writer, Dies at 67.

Excerpt: Hannah's first novel, ''Geronimo Rex,'' was published in 1972. It received the William Faulkner prize for writing and was nominated for a National Book Award. His 1996 short story collection, ''High Lonesome,'' was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.

Novelist and Mississippi native Richard Ford called Hannah ''a shooting star.''

''Barry could somehow make the English sentence generous and unpredictable, yet still make wonderful sense, which for readers is thrilling,'' Ford said from his home in Maine. ''You never knew the source of the next word. But he seemed to command the short story form and the novel form and make those forms up newly for himself.''

Longtime friend Malcolm White, the director of the Mississippi Arts Commission, said Hannah ''loved words, fishing, his family and going fast.''

''Barry was Mississippi's irreverent poet of the dark side, our rebellious, misfit uncle of the nightlife, the voice of the unrehearsed and the unapologetic outburst in corner of the room,'' White said Monday.

World War II Book Breaking Into "A Million Little Pieces"?

Link to March 2 New York Times article, "Publisher to Halt Printing of Disputed Hiroshima Book".

Excerpt: The New York Times reported last month that one of the book’s sources, Joseph Fuoco, described as a last-minute substitute flight engineer on one of the two planes that escorted the plane that dropped the bomb on Hiroshima, was an imposter. Mr. Fuoco, who died in 2008 at 84, has been discredited by scientists, historians, veterans and the family of the actual flight engineer.

Mr. Pellegrino admitted his mistake, saying he had been duped and would correct the book for future editions. But the publisher said it had continuing questions that Mr. Pellegrino did not answer satisfactorily.

Duped? Isn't the one of the cardinal rules of reportage to double-check and triple-check your sources?

["Oh, Retiring Guy, what century do you live in?"]

And then there's a question about the existence of a Father MacQuitty. (Wonder if Pellegrino watched A Night to Remember during the writing of Last Train?)

Oh, hey, check this out, folks, at Pellegrino's website.

Pellegrino says, in essence, "I forgot".

....forgot to disclose in the book's acknowledgements that he had used a pseudonym for the priest, as the Times article reports.

Retiring Guy remembers when he heard this all-purpose excuse from his sons all the time.

And there's more. A question about the validity of Pellegrino's Ph.D.

Pellegrino said that the Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand, which he lists on his Web site, charlespellegrino.com, as the institution where he earned his doctorate, had stripped him of his Ph.D. because of a disagreement over evolutionary theory.

But Barbara Marriott, the employment relations manager for Victoria said in an e-mail message that Mr. Pellegrino did not have a Ph.D. from the university. She said the university was investigating the situation.

Still on his resume.

Related article:

Why Authors Should Always Double-Check Their Sources. (2/21/2010)

Wisconsin Historical Society Library Reading Room Restored to 1900 Grandeur

Except for the addition of some miscellaneous pieces of furniture, the renovation of the Library Reading Room of the Wisconsin Historical Society is now complete. As noted on the Society's website, the goal of this project was to "rehabilitate this space to its original 1900 grandeur".

Mission accomplished!

Retiring Guy stopped by the other day and snapped these photos, which hardly do the place justice. You'll want to make plans to see it for yourself.

Views from the corners: Southwest.

Southeast

Northeast.

Northwest.

Comfy seats. Some with an ottoman.

A section of the reference collection. Where else could you expect to find a complete run of Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature?

Views from the balcony


Bird's-eye view of reference desk.


Ceiling detail.

Living in a Glass House

Photo source: everystockphoto.com

Link to March 2 Mashable post, "How Companies are Mining Your Social Data".

Excerpt: Companies are mining the social web to build dossiers on you. Information posted publicly on blogs, Facebook, Twitter, forums and other sites is fair game. It is yet another reminder that people need to be aware of what they are posting on social networking sites and to whom they’re connected.

Jules Polonetsky, director and co-chair of the Future of Privacy Forum, said online users have no clue that a comment they made on a blog is being added to a database for some unknown use.

“I don’t think users expect that*,” he said, and if consumers think idle chatter and casual conversation can be used against them by institutions, it’s almost certain to create a backlash, according to Polonetsky. He said the Federal Trade Commission is right now re-examining the current privacy structure in the U.S.

But at the same time, he said consumers are always very comfortable with Amazon using data to recommend books they might like. “When users are in control of it, it’s a win-win — if they feel empowered.”

*With so much evidence to the contrary, why would users "expect that"?
1, 2, 3, 4......

Boston Public Library Anticipating Budget Cuts in 2011

Link to March 2 Tufts Daily article, "Boston Public Library considers branch closures, service cuts". (via Twitter)

Excerpt: The Boston Public Library (BPL) faces the prospect of closing eight to 10 of its branch locations and cutting services because the state of Massachusetts and City of Boston are cutting funding for the library by as much as $3.6 million in fiscal year 2011.

Founded in 1848, the BPL is the nation’s oldest publicly supported library. The library has two central locations in Boston, a public loan library and a research library, and consists of 26 branch locations dispersed throughout different Boston neighborhoods, according to director of the Tisch Library Jo-Ann Michalak.

The city of Boston in the 2010 fiscal year provided 72.2 percent of the BPL’s funding while the state of Massachusetts accounted for 9.8 percent of its annual funding.

According to the BPL’s operating budget overview released to the public, the state’s contribution in fiscal year 2011 is estimated to decline by 40 percent or $1.6 million, while the city’s contribution is expected to see a one percent drop, amounting to $300,000.

These estimates led to a total revenue prediction of $38.7 million, which would fall short of the predicted $42.2 million maintenance budget.

Wisconsin: More Bars Than Grocery Stores

Source: Flowing Data via Floating Sheep

Excerpt from a February 1, 2010, Floating Sheep blogpost, "The Beer Belly of America".

At FloatingSheep, we're willing to search for and analyze almost anything that falls within the realm of human experience. Sometimes this is mundane (pizza) and sometimes it is contentious (abortion) but most of the time it falls somewhere in between. Such as, where can I get a drink?


In Pennsylvania, for example, where Retiring Guy grew up, you still can't buy alcohol -- beer or otherwise -- in a grocery store.

Your options:
Beer: distributor, bar.
Wine & liquor: state store.

Day in the Life of the Lester Public Library

Lester Public Library, Two Rivers, Wisconsin

Link to Herald-Times Reporter.

Photo count is up to 164.

The High-Speed Rail Debate in Wisconsin

Connecting Wisconsin

Link to February 11 Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel article, "High-speed rail carries high costs, Walker says".

Excerpt: Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker said Thursday the state should pass up the federal government's offer of $823 million for a high-speed rail line linking Milwaukee to Madison and Chicago - unless millions more for operating the line come with the deal.

That's unlikely, he said. Based on what's known about the high-speed rail plan, Walker said he would reject the federal largess.

The county executive, a Republican candidate for governor, said he might back the high-speed rail idea if "there was a model that could be shown where it was self-sufficient, where the operating costs were covered by the users." He acknowledged that also was unlikely.

In many cases, the inference seems to be that roads somehow pay for themselves.

Not so, says Pew.

Link to December 11, 2009, Transportation for America blogpost, "Pew: 'Self-sustaining' highways are increasingly subsidized."

Excerpt: Critics of public transportation often cling to the canard that government should not subsidize a transportation option that cannot pay for itself. These naysayers reference “self-sustaining” roads and highways, which receive funding from user-fees – in this case, the federal gas tax.

Link to November 25, 2009, article at Subsidy Scope, an Initiative of the Pew Charitable Trusts, "Analysis Finds Shifting Trends in Highway Funding: User Fees Make Up Decreasing Share."

Excerpt: The way America's roads are funded is changing. Revenues that predominantly come from users of roads (“user fees”), including fuel taxes, vehicle registration fees and tolls, pay for a decreasing share of road costs. Taxes and fees not directly related to highway use (“non-user fees”) and bonds are making up the difference.

Using Federal Highway Administration statistics, Subsidyscope has calculated that in 2007, 51 percent of the nation's $193 billion set aside for highway construction and maintenance was generated through user fees—down from 10 years earlier when user fees made up 61 percent of total spending on roads. The rest came from other sources, including revenue generated by income, sales and property taxes, as well as bond issues.

Going back further, the trend is even more pronounced.

Where Do Americans Get Their News? Survey Says......

...92% use multiple platforms to get news on a typical day.

Link to March 1 Pew Internet & American Life Project report, "The New News Landscape: The Rise of the Internet".

Excerpt: In the digital era, news has become omnipresent. Americans access it in multiple formats on multiple platforms on myriad devices. The days of loyalty to a particular news organization on a particular piece of technology in a particular form are gone. 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.

[snip]

Only local and national TV news, the latter if you combine cable and network, are more popular platforms than the internet for news. And most Americans use a combination of both online and offline sources. On a typical day

• 78% of Americans say they get news from a local TV station.
• 73% say they get news from a national network such as CBS or cable TV station such as CNN or Fox News.
• 61% say they get some kind of news online.
• 54% say they listen to a radio news program at home or in the car.
• 50% say they read news in a local newspaper.
• 17% say they read news in a national newspaper such as the New York Times or USA Today.

Hey,
lotta
good
it does us.

Related article:

Magazine web sites: built for speed, not for accuracy. (3/1/2010)