Pew Research Center: Newspapers generate nearly all online news consumed

At least, that’s one of the findings in a new(ish) study: 95 percent of all Baltimore news (the subject for the study) reported originated with traditional media, most of it from newspapers. Most of the other venues, including online, were mostly just regurgitating and discussing what the Baltimore Sun had turned up to begin with. Even in a market with now 53 (!) different entities covering local news, only 17 percent of their coverage had anything new, and most of that was generated by “old” media online.

Of course, it’s not all good news: The Sun is posting more government press releases verbatim in an apparent attempt to having news break as fast as possible.

Still, this (limited) study confirms what I’ve believed for a while: While Twitter and other social media might be great for disseminating the fact that an event has happened, and then linking to news stories about said event, it’s not going to replace traditional media any time soon. It’s not like there’s a big barrier to entry to live-blogging a Baltimore city council meeting on Twitter: It’s just that unpaid amateurs are unlikely to sit through all those meetings and do the basic work of reporting, especially in the absence of some burning issue that speaks to them personally.

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