A recent post at the Atlantic Wire shows that visits to the New York Times homepage fell by half over the past two years. A variety of data shows that readers no longer seek out media, but rather read only what is sent along on social media. In other words, media no longer attract readers (pull) but instead find readership through links, texts, social media and other alerts (push). From the story The News Homepage is Dead:
“The decline in mobile app usage is also significant, but probably related. Home pages, section fronts, and apps are pull media—that is, they rely on readers actively requesting them. But the new news habit is no habit at all … Pull media has quickly been replaced by push media, as the Times report makes clear in so many words. Information—status updates, photos of your friends, videos of Solange, and sometimes even news articles—come at you; they find you. And media that don’t are hardly found at all.”
