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Newspapers perform a valuable role in enforcing local accountability

29 Jul 2011

David Levy writes in The Economist

In some ways this dichotomy might appear rather antiquated. After all, isn't everything online now? What difference does the method of delivery make? But in reality we still see wide divergences between media organisations in terms of both consumption and production. First, consumption: across many countries most people rely far more on television than on the press for news. In Britain this disparity is very marked. Industry regulator Ofcom reported in 2009 that 74% of people in Britain used TV as their main source of news, way ahead of other news sources. More recent Ofcom figures surveying internet users (2010) showed TV ahead of the internet and newspapers as the main source of international and national news in Britain, France, Germany, Italy, America and Japan. Of course it is relevant that many of the online news providers are themselves traditional media organisations—whether from the press or broadcast. Read the rest of David's article in The Economist