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Tuned Out: Why Americans Under 40 Don’t Follow the News DAVID T. Z. MINDICH OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS Tuned Out i This page intentionally left blank Tuned Out Why Americans Under 40 Don’t Follow the News DAVID T. Z. MINDICH New Yo rk Oxford OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 2005 Oxford University Press Oxford New York Auckland Bangkok Buenos Aires Cape Town Chennai Dar es Salaam Delhi Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kolkata Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi São Paulo Shanghai Taipei Tokyo Toronto Copyright © 2005 by Oxford University Press, Inc. Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. 198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York, 10016 www.oup.com Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Mindich, David T. Z., 1963– Tuned out : why young people don’t follow the news / David T. Z. Mindich p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-19-516140-8 (cloth alk. paper)—ISBN 0-19-516141-6 (alk. paper) 1. Press—Influence. 2. Newspaper reading. 3. Broadcast journalism. 4. Television and reading—United States. 5. Mass media and youth. 6. Youth—Books and reading. I. Title. PN4731.M49 2004 302.23�083—dc22 2004046938 Printing number: 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper To my parents, Leonard Mindich and Margot Zucker Mindich, who followed the news and walked in the 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery protest. And to my brothers, Jeremy Mindich and Dan Mindich, who attended in utero but would have also walked willingly. This page intentionally left blank Contents Preface ix 1. A Generational Shift 1 2. How Tuned Out Are They? 18 3. Talking with Young People I: Striptease News and the Shifting Balance Between Need and Want 34 4. Talking with Young People II: Who Follows the News and Why 60 5. Television, the Internet, and the Eclipse of the Local 77 6. The Decline of General News and the Deliberative Body 95 7. Conclusion: How to Tune Back In 112 Appendix A: People Surveyed or Interviewed for This Project, 2001–2003 128 Appendix B: Format of the Standard Interview 130 Appendix C: Responses to Questions 11–21 132 Bibliography 134 Notes 143 Index 161 vii This page intentionally left blank Preface The thesis of this book, that young people have largely abandoned traditional news, was not one that I pursued. Instead, it came to me, like a news flash, as I was teaching a class one afternoon in January 2001. On that day, the first of the semester in Media Law and Ethics, I distributed an informal quiz to test students’ background knowledge of the law. I had reason for optimism. These par- ticular students were among the best and brightest in a top department in a se- lective college. And it was an excellent time to ask students about politics and the law: The Supreme Court had just halted the 2000 presidential election and the hearings to confirm John Ashcroft as attorney general were well underway. The results were startling. Of 23 students, 18 could not identify even one Supreme Court justice. Only one could name the attorney general nominee. Most revealing of all, four wrote that the attorney general nominee was Colin Powell; it is likely they homed in on the word “general,” reflecting a total ig- norance of what an attorney general is or does. Later, as I conducted interviews with young people across the country—from New Orleans to Boston to Kansas City to Los Angeles to Burlington—I discovered that this first group of students was not less informed than their peers; in fact, they were more tuned in than most. Young people have always had a lot on their mind that has nothing to do with news. But in the 1950s and 1960s, young people were nearly as informed about news and politics as their elders were. This has changed dramatically. This book will show that the average 20-something is getting far less news from newspapers, television, radio, and, yes, even the Internet, than you could ever imagine. In addition, more 30-somethings are getting less news than ever before, too. The decline in news consumption, which has taken place over the past four decades, has produced two generations of young adults who, for the most part, have barely an outline of what they need to make an informed de- cision in the voting booth. The decline in news consumption begs a number of interesting questions. What makes some young people tune out and some tune in? How has the balance between entertainment and news shifted over time? What are young peo- ix