People are turning to the internet rather than to newspapers as their preferred outlet for national and international news. Only television exceeds the internet as a news source.

Source: Pew Research Center website.

That’s the bottom line of a study released by the Pew Research Center, which says the number of people saying they get most of their national and international news from the internet has increased to 40 percent, up from 24 percent since just September 2007. The percentage turning to newspapers for that news is about 35 percent, pretty much in the range it has been since 2005. Television’s 70 percent makes it the medium “cited most frequently,” but that figure is actually down from 74 percent a year earlier.

(Numbers exceed 100 percent because respondents could choose more than one media outlet.)

Source: Pew Research Center website.

For the younger demographic most attractive to advertisers, nearly 60 percent of those under age 30 say they get most of their national and international news online. In September 2007, only half that percentage of that age group had cited the internet as their principal source of national and international news.

The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press reported its findings based on a survey of 1,489 adults between December 3 and 7, 2008.