North Texans Don’t Read Local News Online

Posted on June 16th, 2011 4:04pm by Tim Rogers
Filed under www.

Check out this new study of online consumption of local news by a fellow named Matthew Hindman. He studied 100 metro areas and found that people in Dallas/Fort Worth don’t consume much local news online. For instance, in the top city, Salt Lake City, a typical web user generates 89 pageviews per month of local news. In Oklahoma City (roughly the median), the typical web user generates 12 pageviews per month. In Dallas/Fort Worth? Just 5.5, tied for seventh-least pageviews.

Then there’s the matter of how many local news sites he found in each market, defined as a site that captures at least 1 percent of the market’s web users in a month’s time). He found we only have nine, about the median. By comparison, Indianapolis has 17, and Boston, the top city, has 28.

It would be nice to know which are the nine North Texas sites he measured. All we know is that four are TV sites, four are print, and one is web-only.

10 comments

  1. DMN, StarT, Denton Record Chronicle, Al Dia, the big 4 network affiliates, and Pegasus?

    @ 4:15 pm on June 16, 2011

  2. Most news sites get their traffic boosts from sports and weather. The study was done over February, March and April of last year so I looked to see what was happening here around that time, and it reminded me why we are not in the local news business here at D. http://www.topix.net/dallas/2010/02

    @ 4:35 pm on June 16, 2011

  3. This supposes one can actually find local news worth reading at their local media websites. Increasingly, that’s not the case at the dailies.

    @ 5:11 pm on June 16, 2011

  4. This could be somewhat distorted by the quality of the related websites. Take Oklahoma, for example: The Daily Oklahoman website is well-organized and features high-quality local content, including video reports, interviews, etc.

    In contrast, the DMN’s website is a slow-loading, error-ridden, disorganized mess (its search feature has never worked properly, for example).

    @ 6:14 pm on June 16, 2011

  5. The RSS feeds for the Startlegram and the DMN are a ridiculous mess.

    @ 7:38 pm on June 16, 2011

  6. I’d definitely read more local news. But unfortunately, our options are limited and what we do have pretty much sucks.

    @ 9:09 am on June 17, 2011

  7. The local DFW news websites don’t make me want to go to them to read the news. Poorly designed, bloated, disorganized… they don’t even treat their own content well. Stories get buried and formatting makes it hard to read. Stories lack context. This is the internet–link to things! Provide interactive content beyond a photo slide show. Use data to tell a story.

    @ 10:42 am on June 17, 2011

  8. I used to live in Indianapolis, so I would like to know what rocks they turned over to find 17 sites!

    @ 11:01 am on June 17, 2011

  9. I’m skeptical of this conclusion. I’d also like to know which sites they looked at. I personally read lots of local news online. I have a site that aggregates headlines from the rss feeds of several local news blogs that I check a few times a day. http://river2.tedchoward.com/dallas.html

    @ 11:26 am on June 17, 2011

  10. DMN’s website is so bad (and they make you pay for content) so I have to go to the American Statesman for Texas news or the Star Telegram. Not any other options for North Texans!

    @ 2:13 pm on June 17, 2011