A majority of Americans don't seem to recognize the value of their local newspaper.
According to a survey from the Pew Research Center, most people say they wouldn't miss local news if their newspaper no longer existed. But at the same time, they say they rely on their newspaper for a broad range of local information.
Sixty-nine percent of those surveyed said their local newspaper's absence wouldn't have a major effect on their ability to keep up with information about their community. But print and online versions of newspapers ranked first or tied for first on 11 of 16 local news topics the survey asked about. People said they turn to newspapers first for everything from community and crime news to arts and culture, social services, zoning and development. Newspapers tied with the Internet for news on housing, schools and jobs, and with TV for local political news.
"People may assume that because they go to the newspaper now for that information, it is available somewhere else," said Tom Rosenstiel, co-author of a report on the survey and director of Pew's Project for Excellence in Journalism. "I'm not sure if that is correct."
Overall, Americans turn to a broad range of online and offline sources when it comes to getting local news and information.
TV is still the most popular source of news for most people, according to the survey. Nearly three-quarters said they watch local newscasts or look at local TV websites at least once a week.
And everyone, it turns out, wants to know about the weather. Eighty-nine percent of respondents said they received information about the weather from some source. It was followed by breaking news, 80 percent; local politics, 67 percent; and crime, 66 percent.
The survey, from Pew's Project for Excellence in Journalism and Internet & American Life Project, found that where people turn for information depends largely on their age. People under 40 are much more likely to turn to the Internet for local news, weather, traffic reports, job listings and information about events, restaurants, and social services. Those over 40 tend to look to the Internet mostly for information on local businesses such as restaurants.
"This move by younger users to rely on the Internet for local information puts considerable pressure on traditional news organizations," the report said. It added that although most news companies have moved online with "ambitious websites and social media strategies," there's evidence that people find specialty websites and search engines a preferable way to find local material.
Half of the study's respondents said they read newspapers or go to the newspapers' websites at least once a week. Surprisingly, though, an old-fashioned source of information - word of mouth - turned out to be the second most popular way to get news, after TV.
"Word of mouth may be becoming more important as people get their news in little ... snippets and piece it together on their own, rather than getting it all at once from Walter Cronkite at the end of the day," Rosenstiel said.
Among the survey's other findings:
- Nearly half of adults use mobile devices to get local news and information. Information about restaurants and other things to do "out and about" is a popular category.
- Only 17 percent of adults said they get local information from social networking sites such as Facebook at least once a month.
- 55 percent of those surveyed said they get local news and information by word of mouth at least once a week.
- Although many people get news online, the websites of newspapers and TV stations "do not score highly as a relied-upon information source on any topics."
- Nearly half of those surveyed said they don't have a "favorite" local news source.
pbxcow
only the newly
pbxcow
only the newly
Lundi 26 septembre 2011 à 7:37
Lundi 26 septembre 2011 à 7:35
Asian markets fell further on Monday due to nagging uncertainty over the eurozone as leaders of the debt-troubled region struggle to find a plan to solve the crisis.
The week got off to a poor start as investors were left unimpressed by a commitment at the weekend from G20 finance chiefs that they would take strong, co-ordinated action to avoid another global financial crisis.
And they are even more nervous as Europe heads into a crunch week that will be key to the future of the region.
Tokyo, which was closed Friday for a public holiday, fell 1.65 percent by the break, Hong Kong fell 0.67 percent, Shanghai lost 0.20 percent and Seoul shed 1.52 percent. But Sydney added 0.18 percent.
The losses extended those from last week, when some global indexes were sent tumbling to multi-year lows because of the ongoing European crisis as well as concerns over US economic growth.
The G20 meeting in Washington issued an emergency statement saying: "We... are committed to a strong and coordinated international response to address the renewed challenges facing the global economy.
"We are taking strong actions to maintain financial stability, restore confidence and support growth," it said.
However, despite moves to shore up confidence in Greece, many fear the country will inevitably default on its loans, which could in turn spread to other economies and lead to another financial downturn.
Mitul Kotecha, a strategist at Credit Agricole, said: "A pledge by G20 officials to help combat the crisis gave some support to markets but given that there were no details on how this would be done, it will not do much to alleviate market stress without some concrete action."
And Teppei Ino, an analyst at the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, said the group "came short of mapping out any measures with immediate effects so have failed to stop the market's selling of risky assets".
A senior dealer at a major Japanese trust bank told Dow Jones Newswires: "Uncertainty will likely persist."
The sell-off comes as the eurozone faces a challenging week with European and IMF experts due to resume a fiscal audit that will decide if Athens can access it latest tranche of rescue funds to escape default.
And German lawmakers will Thursday vote on a beefed-up European Union stability fund that would permit sovereign debt restructuring, which the eurozone looks increasingly likely to need.
That vote is two days after Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou visits Berlin for talks with Chancellor Angela Merkel amid speculation that a second, multi-billion euro bailout for Athens crafted in July will need to be revised.
The euro dipped against major currencies in the morning. It sagged to $1.3428 in Tokyo morning trade from $1.3503 in New York late Friday. It also dipped to 102.72 yen from 103.31 yen, but remained above the fresh 10-year trough of 102.22 it hit last week.
The dollar was rangebound at 76.47 yen compared to 76.50 yen.
On oil markets New York's main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in November gained 18 cents to $80.03 per barrel.
Brent North Sea crude for November delivery advanced 42 cents to $104.39.
Gold fetched $1,644.05 an ounce by 0200 GMT, down from the $1,734.86 it was at by 0900 GMT Friday.
The week got off to a poor start as investors were left unimpressed by a commitment at the weekend from G20 finance chiefs that they would take strong, co-ordinated action to avoid another global financial crisis.
And they are even more nervous as Europe heads into a crunch week that will be key to the future of the region.
Tokyo, which was closed Friday for a public holiday, fell 1.65 percent by the break, Hong Kong fell 0.67 percent, Shanghai lost 0.20 percent and Seoul shed 1.52 percent. But Sydney added 0.18 percent.
The losses extended those from last week, when some global indexes were sent tumbling to multi-year lows because of the ongoing European crisis as well as concerns over US economic growth.
The G20 meeting in Washington issued an emergency statement saying: "We... are committed to a strong and coordinated international response to address the renewed challenges facing the global economy.
"We are taking strong actions to maintain financial stability, restore confidence and support growth," it said.
However, despite moves to shore up confidence in Greece, many fear the country will inevitably default on its loans, which could in turn spread to other economies and lead to another financial downturn.
Mitul Kotecha, a strategist at Credit Agricole, said: "A pledge by G20 officials to help combat the crisis gave some support to markets but given that there were no details on how this would be done, it will not do much to alleviate market stress without some concrete action."
And Teppei Ino, an analyst at the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, said the group "came short of mapping out any measures with immediate effects so have failed to stop the market's selling of risky assets".
A senior dealer at a major Japanese trust bank told Dow Jones Newswires: "Uncertainty will likely persist."
The sell-off comes as the eurozone faces a challenging week with European and IMF experts due to resume a fiscal audit that will decide if Athens can access it latest tranche of rescue funds to escape default.
And German lawmakers will Thursday vote on a beefed-up European Union stability fund that would permit sovereign debt restructuring, which the eurozone looks increasingly likely to need.
That vote is two days after Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou visits Berlin for talks with Chancellor Angela Merkel amid speculation that a second, multi-billion euro bailout for Athens crafted in July will need to be revised.
The euro dipped against major currencies in the morning. It sagged to $1.3428 in Tokyo morning trade from $1.3503 in New York late Friday. It also dipped to 102.72 yen from 103.31 yen, but remained above the fresh 10-year trough of 102.22 it hit last week.
The dollar was rangebound at 76.47 yen compared to 76.50 yen.
On oil markets New York's main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in November gained 18 cents to $80.03 per barrel.
Brent North Sea crude for November delivery advanced 42 cents to $104.39.
Gold fetched $1,644.05 an ounce by 0200 GMT, down from the $1,734.86 it was at by 0900 GMT Friday.
Lundi 26 septembre 2011 à 7:34
Or at least $805.6 billion as of the end of September, not including debt service and additional reset costs; around $940 billion including interest payments.
As the US economy faces the prospects of stagnant growth or recession, it is of interest to see why the scope for fiscal policy is so circumscribed -- that is why is the debt level so high given that in the last year of the Clinton Administration, we were paying down debt? Figure 1 depicts part of the answer (other parts, here).
trilliondollarwar1.gif
Figure 1: Cumulative direct costs, in current dollars by fiscal year, in the Iraq theater of operations ("Operation Iraqi Freedom"). Does not include resulting debt service. Source: Amy Belasco, "The Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Other Global War on Terror Operations Since 9/11," RL33110, Congressional Research Service, March 29, 2011, Table 3. Data for FY2011 is for continuing resolution, for 2012 is Administration FY2012 request.
To understand the magnitude of the cumulative nominal costs as of September 2011, it is useful to normalize by nominal GDP. As of 2011Q2, GDP was $15 trillion SAAR. Hence, cumulative expenditures (not including the resulting incremental interest rate payments) was equivalent to 5.4% of one year’s economic output. Including the interest burden, the (publicly held) debt to GDP ratio would be 6.3 percentage points lower than what it currently is (65.0%).
Former Vice President Dick Cheney’s remarks about the benefits of the United States’ expedition in Iraq are interesting in this context. From CNN:
When asked if the current fatality count of more than 4,000 troops in Iraq, coupled with the hundreds of billions of dollars spent on the war, made it a worthy endeavor, Cheney said "yes."
"No doubt about it," Cheney said. "When we went in and took down Saddam Hussein, first of all, we got rid of one of the worst dictators in the world."
....
Still talking about the war in Iraq, he later said: "I think we made exactly the right decisions." "There were a lot of things that came out of what we did in Iraq that were very positive," Cheney said. "We're much better off today with Saddam Hussein gone. We've got Moammar Gadhafi gone. We got a lot done. We didn't get it all done, but we got a lot done."
Vice President Cheney makes no mention of the costs.
Note that figure 1 does not incorporate the debt servicing costs associated with these expenditures which were unmatched by any tax revenue increases. Nor does it necessarily include all the reset costs to refurbish and restore the equipment that experienced economic depreciation during operations (i.e., was worn out). [CSBA, 2011, pp.8-9] [CSBA, 2009, p. 29]
It is also of interest to tabulate the costs in real (i.e., inflation adjusted) dollars, so we know the resource costs associated with the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Those are depicted in FY2010 dollars in figure 2.
trilliondollarwar2.gif
Figure 2: Cumulative real direct costs, in constant (FY2010) dollars by fiscal year, in the Iraq theater of operations ("Operation Iraqi Freedom"). Does not include debt service costs. Source: Nominal figures from Amy Belasco, "The Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Other Global War on Terror Operations Since 9/11," RL33110, Congressional Research Service, March 29, 2011, Table 3. Data for FY2011 is for continuing resolution, for 2012 is Administration FY2012 request. Deflated by CPI-all. CPI for 2011 assumes September 2011 m/m inflation is the same as August 2011 m/m inflation. Assumes 2012 inflation is equal to August 2011 CBO forecast for CY2012 inflation.
Real direct costs as of end-September will be 857 billion FY2010$; it will be approximately 874 billion as of end of FY2012.
Clearly, these direct fiscal costs are not the only costs associated with this venture. Since some Econbrowser readers have requested it, I also include a tally of US casualties in the Iraq theater of operations.
trilliondollarwar3.gif
Figure 3: Killed in action (blue), and wounded in action (red) in Iraq theater of operations. "Mission accomplished": End of major combat operations declared by President Bush. "Last throes of the insurgency": Statement by Vice President Cheney. Dashed line at 2009M01, end of Bush Administration. Source: icasualties.org.
By the way, the macro challenge posed by the unfunded war (combined with tax cuts and a new, unfunded, Medicare Part D mandate) was not unforeseen. Nearly five years ago, I predicted that running big budget deficits when the US economy was near full employment would constrain fiscal policy in a dangerous way when we encountered a downturn. [1].
As the US economy faces the prospects of stagnant growth or recession, it is of interest to see why the scope for fiscal policy is so circumscribed -- that is why is the debt level so high given that in the last year of the Clinton Administration, we were paying down debt? Figure 1 depicts part of the answer (other parts, here).
trilliondollarwar1.gif
Figure 1: Cumulative direct costs, in current dollars by fiscal year, in the Iraq theater of operations ("Operation Iraqi Freedom"). Does not include resulting debt service. Source: Amy Belasco, "The Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Other Global War on Terror Operations Since 9/11," RL33110, Congressional Research Service, March 29, 2011, Table 3. Data for FY2011 is for continuing resolution, for 2012 is Administration FY2012 request.
To understand the magnitude of the cumulative nominal costs as of September 2011, it is useful to normalize by nominal GDP. As of 2011Q2, GDP was $15 trillion SAAR. Hence, cumulative expenditures (not including the resulting incremental interest rate payments) was equivalent to 5.4% of one year’s economic output. Including the interest burden, the (publicly held) debt to GDP ratio would be 6.3 percentage points lower than what it currently is (65.0%).
Former Vice President Dick Cheney’s remarks about the benefits of the United States’ expedition in Iraq are interesting in this context. From CNN:
When asked if the current fatality count of more than 4,000 troops in Iraq, coupled with the hundreds of billions of dollars spent on the war, made it a worthy endeavor, Cheney said "yes."
"No doubt about it," Cheney said. "When we went in and took down Saddam Hussein, first of all, we got rid of one of the worst dictators in the world."
....
Still talking about the war in Iraq, he later said: "I think we made exactly the right decisions." "There were a lot of things that came out of what we did in Iraq that were very positive," Cheney said. "We're much better off today with Saddam Hussein gone. We've got Moammar Gadhafi gone. We got a lot done. We didn't get it all done, but we got a lot done."
Vice President Cheney makes no mention of the costs.
Note that figure 1 does not incorporate the debt servicing costs associated with these expenditures which were unmatched by any tax revenue increases. Nor does it necessarily include all the reset costs to refurbish and restore the equipment that experienced economic depreciation during operations (i.e., was worn out). [CSBA, 2011, pp.8-9] [CSBA, 2009, p. 29]
It is also of interest to tabulate the costs in real (i.e., inflation adjusted) dollars, so we know the resource costs associated with the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Those are depicted in FY2010 dollars in figure 2.
trilliondollarwar2.gif
Figure 2: Cumulative real direct costs, in constant (FY2010) dollars by fiscal year, in the Iraq theater of operations ("Operation Iraqi Freedom"). Does not include debt service costs. Source: Nominal figures from Amy Belasco, "The Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Other Global War on Terror Operations Since 9/11," RL33110, Congressional Research Service, March 29, 2011, Table 3. Data for FY2011 is for continuing resolution, for 2012 is Administration FY2012 request. Deflated by CPI-all. CPI for 2011 assumes September 2011 m/m inflation is the same as August 2011 m/m inflation. Assumes 2012 inflation is equal to August 2011 CBO forecast for CY2012 inflation.
Real direct costs as of end-September will be 857 billion FY2010$; it will be approximately 874 billion as of end of FY2012.
Clearly, these direct fiscal costs are not the only costs associated with this venture. Since some Econbrowser readers have requested it, I also include a tally of US casualties in the Iraq theater of operations.
trilliondollarwar3.gif
Figure 3: Killed in action (blue), and wounded in action (red) in Iraq theater of operations. "Mission accomplished": End of major combat operations declared by President Bush. "Last throes of the insurgency": Statement by Vice President Cheney. Dashed line at 2009M01, end of Bush Administration. Source: icasualties.org.
By the way, the macro challenge posed by the unfunded war (combined with tax cuts and a new, unfunded, Medicare Part D mandate) was not unforeseen. Nearly five years ago, I predicted that running big budget deficits when the US economy was near full employment would constrain fiscal policy in a dangerous way when we encountered a downturn. [1].