This article was originally published by Northwestern University’s Medill Local News Initiative and is republished here with permission.
The 2024 presidential election remains months away, yet a new Medill survey shows that as of May almost half of surveyed adults already were sick of hearing about it — a finding that could have significant implications not only for national news organizations but also local ones.
The national poll, commissioned by the Medill School at Northwestern University and conducted in May by NORC at the University of Chicago, measured news fatigue and avoidance among American adults. In response to the statement “I’m tired of receiving and processing news about the 2024 presidential election,” 48.8% of those surveyed agreed or strongly agreed while 21.8% disagreed or strongly disagreed, and 28.2% responded “Neither.”
“In May, almost half of the U.S. adults surveyed are already feeling like they are tired of receiving and processing news about the election,” said Stephanie Edgerly, the Medill professor and associate dean of research who oversaw the survey. “If that’s true, then what does local news do?”
Medill undergraduate students in Edgerly’s spring quarter class “J390 Collecting and Analyzing Audience Data” developed the poll questions. The survey was conducted before the recent upheavals in the presidential race, including President Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance, the assassination attempt on presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump, Biden’s withdrawal from the race in favor of his vice president, Kamala Harris, and Trump’s selection of J.D. Vance as his running mate.
But Lila Mills, editor-in-chief of the nonprofit newsroom Signal Cleveland, said she doesn’t think this summer’s big headlines have moved the fatigue needle.
“I don’t think it has changed since May,” Mills said. “In general, people have news fatigue.”
The most “tired” group surveyed was older adults, with 54.3% of the 60-plus demographic in the agreement camp, compared to just 44.5% of ages 30-44 and 47.4% of ages 18-29. In a narrow gender divide, women (50.8% agreement) were more tired of election news than men (47.9%). The fatigue factor was highest among white adults (52.3% agree), with Black (43.5%), Hispanic (46.9%) and Asian (38.7%) adults expressing lower fatigue.
Education level appears to be a minimal factor, with less than 5% separating the highest agreement response (52.% for college graduates) and lowest (47.3% for post-graduate degree holders and professionals). There also was little disparity among income levels and geographical regions.
On the political spectrum, self-described conservatives reported the lowest levels of being tired of election news (41.7%) while moderates reported the highest level (53.6%), and liberals fell in between (49.5%).
The survey also measured responses to the statement “I find myself actively trying to avoid news.” That overall agreement level was 38.2%, compared with 34.6% disagreeing and 26.4% saying “Neither.”
Women scored slightly higher in news avoidance (40.3% vs. 36.5% for men) while the split was more pronounced among racial groups: 46.9% of Hispanics agreed that they avoid the news, compared with just 11.3% of Asians; 39.8% of white adults and 32.1%. of Black adults also agreed that they avoid the news.
Respondents with the least education (less than high school) reported the highest level of avoidance, 47.4%, compared with 35.5% for those with some college experience and 35.8% for post-grad/professionals. This question spurred little disagreement across ideological lines, with 37.7% of liberals and 37.6% of conservatives reporting news avoidance.
The survey also found a strong association between the election fatigue and news avoidance measured in the two questions: 58.2% of those who agreed to being tired of 2024 presidential election news said they also actively avoid the news. If, more than six months before the 2024 presidential election, a significant portion of the U.S. population already was reporting election-news fatigue — and more than half of those people were avoiding news altogether — that dynamic could have serious consequences for national as well as local news organizations trying to attract and retain readers and subscribers.
“Should local news organizations become the antithesis to news on the national election front, or should they be strategic when they report updates about the election?” Edgerly said. “The big challenge is how do local news organizations not make people want to turn away and tune out, especially when so many people are feeling fatigued?”
The Medill professor expressed hope that readers’ attitudes may evolve as the election grows closer. “A more positive interpretation is that people are biding their time — like, ‘Yes, I’m tired of receiving and processing news about the election, but I’ll tune in more during October when it is closer to Election Day,’” Edgerly said.
Still, Mills said news organizations must address the larger problem, which is not time sensitive. “I think news fatigue is a real issue, not just about elections but in general,” the Signal Cleveland editor-in-chief said. “We in local news have a lot of work to do to cut through the noise and give people the information that they’re really looking for, which I don’t think is the horserace coverage or the power dynamics but explaining what they’re going to see on their ballot and what it means and giving them some context about how it ended up that way.”
Mills said Signal Cleveland, a community-focused news outlet launched in November 2022, has learned through its election coverage that readers want stories that help them process information such as how to navigate what’s on the ballot and what to know about judges. “Explaining that kind of information did really well for us and showed people were hungry for that,” Mills said.
Tom Rosenstiel, professor of the practice at the University of Maryland Philip Merrill College of Journalism, sees a potential bright side for local news organizations in regard to news fatigue.
“Local publications exist in the same media environment as national ones, and they’re vying for people’s time,” Rosenstiel said. “But it’s the national news that people are trying to avoid. It’s making people feel negative and sad. It’s not local news that’s doing that, so that is potentially an opportunity.”
The key, Rosenstiel said, is that local journalism must offer “something of value, something that’s genuinely interesting, something that’s telling me something I don’t know, something that’s well written. The world is distressing so the news is distressing, and journalism hasn’t evolved where it needs to go, to be helping me live my life rather than trying to get my attention. Journalism is still operating in the attention marketplace, trying to get eyeballs, trying to alarm me to pay attention.”
That strategy may have made more sense when online outlets made much of their money from advertising and clicks, Rosenstiel said, “but we’re not in that world anymore. The news has to help me live my life.”
Mills agreed. “You’ve got to really pull back and say, ‘How is this going to impact people in their daily lives as they’re going about their business?’” she said. “Because we’re inundated with information.”
