Only 45% of journalism students read a book on a given day

From 2012 Annual Survey of Journalism & Mass Communication Graduates by Lee B. Becker, Tudor Vlad, Holly Simpson, and Konrad Kalpen. Not sure quite whether to be alarmed or not. Students graduating with degrees in journalism seem to do relatively little reading. The bulk of the dreary picture is below. Very few actually read a physical newspaper (37%) or magazine (42%) the day before they were surveyed. The very people that are wanting to create content aren't reading the content already being produced. About 76% read or viewed news online. That looks better till you realize the weasel word in there, 'viewed'. Viewing isn't reading. I see a newspaper on a table but that doesn't count as having read it. You don't have to be overly skeptical to suspect that they are mixing apples and oranges and that in fact fewer than half of those wanting to be journalists actually read the news whether online or in the real world.

To me the real shocker is how uncurious the journalism students must be. Again, it is hidden in the text, but if you go to the chart on page 55 (odd that you have to look at the pictures to capture what should be in the words) you can see that only 45% of the students read a book the prior day. How can you be in college, regardless of degree, and not be reading books everyday?

I hope that in some fashion this is an unrepresentative survey but if it is a true picture, Yikes!

Only about a third of the journalism and mass communication bachelor’s degree recipients in 2012 reported they had read a newspaper the day before completing the survey, the lowest figure since the question was first posed in 1994 (Chart 65). In fact, the 36.6% who reported reading a newspaper in 2012 is less than half the 81.7% reporting that behavior in 1994. Most journalism and mass communication graduates also didn’t read a magazine the day before completing the survey or read a book. Both figures were down significantly from a year earlier.

The 2012 journalism and mass communication graduates are much like the graduates of a year earlier in terms of their use of electronic media (Chart 66). About six in 10 reported watching television news the day before the survey, and four in 10 reporting listening to radio news. Three-quarters read or viewed news online, and two-thirds read, viewed or heard news on a mobile device. Online and mobile device use is the dominant news platform for the graduates. The online news category can overlap the mobile category, making a comparison difficult.

As was true a year earlier, more than half of the 2012 graduates reported reading at least one blog the day before the survey (Chart 67). More than nine in 10 of the 2012 graduates reported checking at least one social network site the day before they returned the survey form. That nearly universal behavior has been consistent for the last three years. Use of video on YouTube or other video sharing sites was reported as yesterday behavior by three-quarters of the 2012 graduates, as was the case a year earlier.