Where do (liberals) get their news?

The answer is not going to shock you.

In my last newsletter, I asked you all: Where did you get your news? I also offered my own thoughts on whether or not newsletters might take the place of news.

First of all: I got nearly 200 responses, thank you so much to everyone for sharing your thoughts. Breakdown and analysis of the results below.

Secondly: Some people, including some I deeply respect, took away from my previous post that I thought newsletters were bad. I like newsletters, I do not think they are bad, and I’m sorry I implied that they might be. This IS, after all, a newsletter. I deeply respect people who have managed to make newsletters into a living, they are doing incredible hard work. I didn’t mean to imply that newsletters were bad! I just don’t think they are, themselves, news sources, because they just don’t have the resources to be that. There are some heavy-hitting exceptions, like The Skimm, or newsletters run by national news outlets. But most single-person operations can’t necessarily keep track of every breaking news thing, and nor should they! Single-person newsletters are wonderful places for op-ed style work, creative nonfiction, fiction, blogging style things. I follow many for exactly that purpose. I hope they continue to share their thoughts, and I am happy to financially support many of them. But I recognize that intent isn’t impact, and I’m sorry that my content was hurtful. I will be more careful in my wording, and maybe even keep my mouth shut in the future.

But I did want to share the results of the survey. They’re both interesting, and in some cases, honestly entertaining.

Let us start with the important issues.

The Context

I became interested in asking where people got their news because I saw more and more people in my feeds expressing major dissatisfaction with large news outlets. They were especially frustrated with coverage of the attacks on Gaza, and long-term frustration simmered over how national outlets cover Trump and trans people.

People were eager to say they’d have nothing to do with The New York Times, or The Washington Post, The Atlantic, or cable news. But people continued to opine on news, they were clearly getting news from somewhere.

The Question

So where then, were people getting their news? Why did they trust the news they did? What makes news trustworthy to them?

The Hypothesis

My hypothesis is that, even though I SAW widespread dissing of major news outlets, that people still were relying on them for breaking news, and relying more on newsletters and alternative outlets for opinion.

The Study

To lay out the parameters of the study: I asked my readers on the newsletter and on my social media to fill out a survey. I have no IRB approval to do this, I did not collect their emails. I do not plan to use the results for any official research purpose. That was laid out at the top of the survey. Just in case.

We start with the demographics (all optional). Before we find out what people think, we need to identify WHO we are asking!

The purple human aside, you can see my audience leans slightly toward women, which is probably a reflection of MY audience, and not the newsreading public.*

At first I had the standard age section (under 18, 19-29, 30-49, and so on), but a friend suggested the generation question would be more fun. Amusingly, a certain number of people were highly upset that I dared define them with generational labels (an odd proportion of those were younger boomers, so maybe that’s why, “boomer” has begun to be a bit derogatory. Sorry).

Unsurprisingly, my audience on social and on this newsletter trends very white.

No one ever asks this question on surveys, but I think it can capture a lot about people, their access to services, and their potential daily exposure to people unlike themselves. Respondents are overwhelmingly city dwellers (one was mad I didn’t put suburb, and you know you’re right I totally forgot!).  

I wanted to include this question because I was especially interested on views of the news within the US, so wanted to make sure I was capturing that, and it looks like I did.

And now, the most hilarious demographic.

My audience skews heavily liberal, which doesn’t surprise me. But the iridescent fan there made me laugh. That’s all the people who felt the need to tell me they were not liberal. They were leftist. Socialist, leftist, Marxist, Marx had some good ideas actually, democratic socialist, left leaning, progressive, leftist, progressive left leaning, left but liberal (?), nihilistic, and on and on. Did I mention leftist?

This is the best visual I’ve ever found of the left carefully subdividing itself into oblivion. Thank you.

The results

Ok, so we know our survey isn’t about news consumption for the public as a WHOLE. Instead, it’s about news consumption of the, for lack of a better word, Online. They are US-based, heavily liberal, on average Millennial-gen X, more likely to be white women, and live in more or less urban spaces. So as we look at the further data, this is the demographic we should keep in mind.

One thing we can say? The people who responded to this survey are plugged to the news cycle.

I then asked where people obtained the majority of their breaking news. This question allowed people to pick multiple responses and I’ll only show the most common.

Only every other choice here is labeled. Here’s the original question:

So you can see that 63.2% of survey takers said they got news from main nationa news outlets like the NYT, Washington Post, etc. 59.3% said they also got news from written social media such as Twitter, Bluesky, etc. 42.3% cited podcasts or radio.

Only 20.3% cited push news alerts to their phone, which I admit surprised me a little! I feel like everyone’s phones are clanging with them, though I’ve turned off mine. 23.1% cited newsletter subscriptions, and I wish I’d been able to follow up and ask which newsletters. 33.5% cited local newspapers, and I wish I’d asked more about those as well! It feels like so many have been completely gutted. You also see healthy representation of national magazines like The Atlantic (24.4%). For those who added “other” I saw a good number of International news outlets (The Guardian, the BBC), PBS, CNN, and NPR (the NPR website specifically), news wires like AP, and a few noted getting news from Discords or friends.

Overall it represents a wide variety of sources, which goes well with the lives many of us are living, phones in our pockets constantly bombarding us with “have you seen?”

Then I asked, how much of something do you read?

These respondents are generally careful readers. 43.4% seek out more than one article on a topic. Another 21.4% read an article in its entirety. I feel deep solidarity with the respondent who wrote in that it depends on how tired they are. Most “other” responses were a variation on “it depends.”

This was quite fascinating to me. I feel like I consistently hear that no one trusts the news anymore. But a solid 2/3 of respondents said they still trust the news more than half the time. I of course wanted to know why!

When people DO trust, at least in this survey, about half say it’s because the claim is supported by evidence, while a little more than a third said they trust the outlet. 6% said they trusted the person who told it to them specifically, and about 4% said they most commonly trusted the news when it matched their pre-existing understanding of the issue.

But what about when they DON’T trust the news?

Again, about half the time it’s because the claim wasn’t supported by evidence, and a third of the time it was because they didn’t trust the outlet. 4.5% of the time, people didn’t trust the person who told it to them. 5.6% of the time they said they didn’t trust it because it didn’t match their understanding of an issue.

There were a lot of write ins for this. Several people expressed frustration when news sources didn’t cite their sources for information. Some said they required verification from multiple trusted sources, and were frustrated by a lack of context.

Again, multiple options are possible here, and I had a LOT of people fill in other. Several people suggested Twitch streams, following links from Twitter or Bluesky, and so on. But 45% are also still getting op-eds from national newspapers, and 36.3% from national magazines (both, it should be noted, put out a lot of op-eds, many of them designed to be inflammatory). 42.3% use newsletter, 36.8% use podcasts, and a more than half found op-eds via written social media.

This is the last multiple choice, and 2/3rds of respondents think they have a good grasp of what’s going on.

Finally, I asked an open-ended question: What does the ideal news outlet look like to you?**

I got SO many responses. Some said they weren’t sure it’s possible. Others were desperate for more context, more transparency (both for fact checking and story selection process), for outlets to own when they publish something wrong. Many wanted more international focus. A lot of people hated clickbait headlines, and rejected the “both sides” horse-race focused angle of political reporting. Many referred to NPR, Pro Publica, the New York Times, and The Washington Post. Several specifically referenced they wanted the access to be free, they outlet to be not for profit, and preferably worker-owned.

The Conclusions

• People in this survey get their news from a large variety of sources, no one is depending on one place for their news diet.

• Respondents didn’t just read headlines. Most of the time they clicked on an article intending to read at least a little, if not to eventually seek more info.

• Respondents still trust the news they read more than half the time. When they do, they trust the claims in the article, and trust the outlets that report them. Similarly, when they don’t trust the news, it’s because they don’t trust the claims or outlets.

• The op-ed diet of these respondents includes a lot of newsletters, national newspapers and magazines, and a lot of written social media.

• People who responded to this survey appeared dissatisfied with their news, and their open responses suggest it’s because they don’t like “both sides” type of stories, and several explicitly wanted their news dry, with no opinion, and very fact based. Many wanted in-depth reporting, but also wanted shorter form stories.

How does this stack up? At the top, I listed my hypothesis as: People still are relying on national outlets for breaking news, and relying more on newsletters and alternative outlets for opinion.

I’d say the survey supported that respondents are still relying on national outlets for breaking news. They might see a lot of complaining, and may hate the way the outlets cover the issues, but they are still reading. Possibly because there’s no where else to go right now.

But I don’t think the results supported that people relied more on newsletters for opinion. They did, but they relied more on national newspapers and short-form written social media like Twitter or Bluesky.

The Limitations

An essential part of any study is its limitations. If I were to do this study again, what would I do differently? LOTS of things. This is barely even science.

• I’d love to get a larger and more politically diverse sample.

• I’d love to delve more into what trustworthy news looks like to people. Perhaps give them a stripped down news story, and ask if they trust it, and why.

• I’d love to ask if people were SATISFIED with the news sources they had, and if not, why not. I am kicking myself for leaving this one out.

• Most people who took the survey were reasonably confident they had a good grasp of events. I’d love to get some data on how good their grasp is.

• People asked for fact checking, transparency. I’d love to find out what they think those things entail, what transparency looks like to them.

The Discussion

Like all good surveys, this left me with more questions than I had before. It also left me with ideas. People do want clear, fact-based, unbiased news reporting. They want transparency.

I can list outlets that do this clear, fact-based, unbiased news reporting. I know some that have worked to be transparent. Some more that are worker-owned. But I know far more that….aren’t. Maybe they don’t see the need to be transparent. Maybe the outlet THINKS its transparent already!

This survey also helped me daydream. What DOES the idea news outlet look like? Who works there? What do they cover? Who determines what they cover, and via what angle? How is news presented? Are there op-eds at all?

Sadly, my daydreams always end with one last, sad question: Who pays for it?  That is, unfortunately, not a question a survey can answer.

Where have you been?

Is it listening to the new Scientific American podcast “Uncertain”? I can’t wait.

Do you listen to Andrew Huberman’s apparently marathon-long podcasts? Cause he’s kind of a Dr. Oz. As a (former) scientist myself, I am telling you. A PhD in something doesn’t make you expert in literally anything else. Heck even a PhD in neuroscience doesn’t mean you know ANYTHING about dopamine, for example.

Mifepristone is up in front of the Supreme Court, with challenges about its safety. You have to read to the bottom of this piece to learn: it’s as safe as ibuprofen. Pleasant? No. Safe? Yes.

Where have I been?

I wrote a big thread on Flaco the Owl, WHY he had so much rat poison in his system, and how Flaco is not alone. Not even a little.

Today I’m coming to you live from the Society for Environmental Journalism conference in Philadelphia. Ok, partially live. Not actually live. Partially deceased? Anyway, I got to join the fantastic team of Benji Jones from Vox, Maya Kapoor from Covering Climate Now, and freelancer Doug Main to talk about helping people connect with unsexy animals. It was a fabulous panel with such great questions.

If you’re in NYC, I’ll be there next week, giving a talk at NYU. I’m going to be chatting with the fabulous Gwen Pearson about all the animals people hate, and I hope to see people there!

I’m also visiting the brand new Brain Scoop book club! You can register for the discord and join here.

My piece on the Chincoteague pony is finally out in Sierra Magazine. I had the BEST time reporting this!

Anti-Discourse Actions

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m trying to stay away from Discourse. Discourse doesn’t DO things.

So this week:

• I’ve continued my long-term fight against libs of Tiktok, reporting their Substack for harassment.

• I’ve made another two dog sweaters for adoptable dogs (who become, weirdly, MORE adoptable when they have cute clothes).

• Letter writing is beginning! We’re writing short personal notes to get out the vote. Not to tell people who to vote for, that’s not my job. Just writing to get people to come out and exercise their rights.

*I tried to include alt text for all of these, and captions. There was no luck, Substack is not playing nice. The images kept breaking. This appears to be the only way to have them in at all. Sorry.

**My personal favorite answer to this question was “a serif font.” This. This is a kindred soul.