HOW MONTANANS GET THEIR NEWS: The Treasure State Crosses the Mobile Media Divide.

• Author: Whitsitt, Bill

The increasingly common news alerts on smartphones and tablets signal more than just another story that's waiting to be read--they also signal that Montanans have moved into the mobile device phase of the digital media age. That's one of the important findings from the latest Greater Montana Foundation survey on news media preferences.

This shift in how we get information has a number of important implications for us as citizens, voters and consumers of news and information. For those in Montana's media industry it's certainly worth a moment of reflection--how is news content consumed and what will be their future business model?

This was the third such study by the Greater Montana Foundation on how Montanans use media to stay informed and what issues they see as most important. It was crafted and analyzed with the assistance of the nationwide polling firm of Public Opinion Strategies, who conduct the well-known NBC News/Wall Street Journal public opinion polls, and administered by the Bureau of Business and Economic Research at the University of Montana.

It confirmed several trends, but also revealed some new and somewhat surprising specific findings. Among the results:

* More Montanans are paying attention to the news.

* Ninety percent of Montanans now say they have internet access, and internet provided news and social media are driving a proliferation of news sources that complement more traditional sources, such as broadcast television, radio and print newspapers (Figure l).

* Nearly 70 percent of Montanans say they get at least a portion of their news from the internet or social media, although other traditional sources remain very important.

* Almost 60 percent of Montanans say they use a mobile device more than a computer to access online sources (Figure 2).

* This combination of more available sources and mobile access has caused declines in the regular consumption of traditional news sources, such as nightly national television news programs, Montana newspapers and local broadcast news (Figure 3).

However, also significantly:

* Montanans are paying more attention to news source credibility--and they rate local news sources as more credible than national news sources (Figure 5).

* Among the top-ranked internet website news sources cited by respondents, seven of the top 15 were local or Montana news outlet sites (Figure 8).

* Among news sources rated as most trustworthy, Fox News comes out on top. NPR ranked second with half as many...