Americans consider the news media to be more of a profit-focused enterprise than as a democratic institution, a study from the Knight Foundation finds.

Based on a survey of nearly 5,600 Americans, the report, American Views 2022: Part 1, News in America: Public Good or Private Enterprise?  (48 pages, PDF), found that very few Americans have paid directly for news, and even fewer are willing to pay in the future. According to the survey, U.S. adults who report getting most of their news from a printed newspaper or magazine are the most likely to have paid directly for news (50 percent), while television news consumers are the least likely to have paid directly for news (16 percent), though they likely pay for cable or streaming services.

The study also examined Americans’ views on how the news industry should be financed. More than half (52 percent) believe advertising should be a news organization’s largest funding source, even though digital ad revenue fails to cover the losses many news organizations are seeing from other revenue streams. More than half of Americans are open to government funding and private donations for news organizations to ensure the news is free for everyone, under certain conditions, including 70 percent of millennials and 74 percent of Generation Z who show an openness to government funding, and 89 percent of millennials and 93 percent of Gen Z who feel similarly about private donations.

“The path to an effective democracy is based, as it always has been, on an informed citizenry. When the financial future of local media is unclear, it threatens the health of our democracy,” said Knight Foundation vice president of journalism Jim Brady. “But the goals of being civically focused and financially sustainable are not at odds; in fact, many of the results of study show they are absolutely connected.”

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