Tuned Out: Why Americans Under 40 Don't Follow the News (Hardcover)

~ (Author)
Key Phrases: local news outlets, news consumption, quality journalism, Tuned Out, New Orleans, United States (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Media critic and former CNN editor Mindich takes a common belief—"that young people have largely abandoned traditional news"—and thoroughly examines many related, more obscure trends to convincingly argue that most young Americans who are "tuned out" not only threaten their own generation but also "democracy itself." Using a range of research approaches, from first-person interviews to large statistical studies of audience preferences, Mindich explodes a number of myths about why young people have shunned serious news. Foremost among these is the frequent response that younger generations don't read newspapers because they're watching TV news instead (the Internet, he finds, "does not in itself drive news use"). Mindich shows that younger nonreaders are "the least likely to consume TV news," and he is most concerned with the loss of new consumers of print media; while he gives a number of examples of how papers have "dumbed down" the news to attract young audiences, he's acutely aware of how papers struggle between maintaining high standards and sustaining profits. Mindich also presents a devastating analysis of how national television news panders to young viewers with "news-as-entertainment" options. But the book's real virtue is the way Mindich marshals statistics to support his challenge to news organizations "to create a society in which young people feel that reading quality journalism is worthwhile." Illus.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

Mindich offers good reporting about young people and the media.... I'm delighted and heartened to see this book. -- Pre-publication statement-- Geneva Overholser, Curtis B. Hurley Chair in Public Affairs Reporting at the Missouri School of Journalism, Washington bureau

This is a very important book. -- Pre-publication statement--Walter Cronkite

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA; illustrated edition edition (October 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195161408
• ISBN-13: 978-0195161403
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #620,853 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Must Read TV, January 18, 2005

By	Donald S. Ennis (West Hartford, CT) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

With all that is going on in the world right now, it's stunning to think how many people are out of touch with day to day news. The newspaper is now nothing more than the front page, maybe an eye-catching headline and the more importantly the horoscope and ads for groceries or cars, maybe the sports schedule or boxscore. TV news is reduced to glitz, glamour, Hollywood dirt, Washington scandal and the dog caught down a drain. At no time in world history has there been so much readily available media to the masses, sometimes unwillingly pumped into your subconscious by airports, banks and post offices on blaring televisions that have no off switch.. and this book eloquently examines why more watch less. To find out why so many have so often decided to watch or read so little news, Mindich hit the road; his journey is related as a classroom of the mind, challenging assumptions and explaining indifference. No one in the business of journalism - and lest no one be fooled, it is a business, a very profitable business for those who control it - and no one who is raising a child in this 21st century should miss a chance to learn why Americans under 40 are 'tuning out.' I heartily recommend educators who want their students to be informed about the world around them, to find a copy for their classroom.

13 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Factually good, but dry and depressing, January 15, 2005

By	Jon Hunt "musician, teacher" (Old Greenwich, Ct. USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Amazon Verified Purchase

David Mindich's new book, "Tuned Out" is a well-researched, if short attempt to tell us something we already know...that younger people, as a rule, pay scant attention to the news. The serious news, that is. Armed with collected data Mindich plows on, like a good college professor, describing in detail how the younger generation has tuned out. Indeed, the narrative often suggests that the reader is in the author's classroom as he dissects the problems associated with the topic. This is not your easy summer (or winter) read.

Anyone who has ever seen the segment on the "Tonight Show" called "Jaywalking" (where Jay Leno asks younger people on the street things about which they should know) will recognize the utter alarm many of us feel at the lack of knowledge these people being interviewed possess. Could these citizens really be THAT far removed from current events and history? They are. Mindich's book is like "Jaywalking" without the fun.

The author does make some excellent points. He devotes part of a chapter to local news and how appallingly bad most of it is. He's certainly right on that score. He also raises a question in his conclusion regarding civics. He writes, "we demand a civics test of everyone who wants to become a U.S. citizen; it seems fitting to have high school students take a news/civics test, too." This is an equally good point. We test citizens-to-be and then let them loose, in a manner of speaking, never to ask anything more of them once they become citizens.

I'm leery, however, of Mindich's assertion that we are in a "crisis". The lack of young people's interest in the news is growing and is disturbing but it is also an evolution which may or may not be as bad as he warns. Still, I recommend the book
for its acknowledgement of the problems that we, who are tuned in, face with those who are not, as a society.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Future of News, September 22, 2004

By	Carolyn Kitch (Philadelphia PA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

As the title of this provocative new book suggests, journalism professor David Mindich has interviewed "young people"-a group he defines widely to include not only college-age students but also members of Generation X who are in their thirties-to find what they know about the world and how they get that information, as well as how they define "news." The answers are not encouraging. But this is not just another hand-wringing exercise, and the book asks broader questions. It explores the reasons why Americans in general have come to feel less of a sense of obligation to follow current events as they are reported in journalism today. The result, as he notes, is civic disengagement as well as disengagement with news media, a loss that diminishes people's sense of national identity as well as their pool of information about national issues.

Mindich contextualizes news against the backdrop of entertainment media with which it increasingly is confused, but avoids collapsing the two into a monolithic concept called "the media." Instead, he recognizes that newspapers, television news, and Internet news site have distinctive characteristics and varying impacts on and relationships with news audiences, in addition to a range of types and quality of news content. Given his own expertise in journalism history, he also provides truly useful context from the past in a sophisticated cultural discussion that draws on sources ranging from Walt Whitman to American Idol.

The central question Mindich asks is important not just with regard to the state of news today; as he points out, the present "tuned-out generations . . . will lead our children and grandchildren." In a larger sense, then, this book is about the future of news and its political, social, and civic functions in American life in an entertainment age and a multimedia world.