A study of Canadian news habits for the Canadian Media Research Consortium, published in 2008, cut across the argument journalists were then having about the value of local reporting.
Television came out as the most used source, with the internet and newspapers tied in second place. The reasons behind each choice were more revealing than the ranking. Television was picked because it was visual and live. The internet was picked because it was searchable and offered a choice of sources. Newspapers were picked out of habit — the respondents were daily readers or subscribers, and that was the explanation they gave.
Only eight per cent said they chose a newspaper because it was a source of local news, and fewer still because they liked holding a physical paper. The medium that the industry was defending on the grounds of its local franchise was being bought for none of those reasons.
The gap that opens up here is between the professional argument and the reader’s account of it. While journalists and commentators debated how important local news was, regular newspaper readers, in Canada at least, were not weighing it at all.