Circulation declines and falling revenue for newspapers and magazines have fueled concern that Americans are replacing traditional offline news sources with online sources. However, a new study by the Pew Center for People and the Press that looked at time spent with different sources of news found that growth in online news consumption hasn’t come at the expense of traditional media such as newspapers and television, but rather has added to it. In fact, people are spending more time with the news than they have at almost any point over the last 15 years, according to the Center’s research.

While it’s true there’s been a gradual decline in the number of people who say they get their daily news from newspapers, magazines and television (with newspapers suffering the biggest decline in consumption), the Pew study found that some of this decline was being compensated for by the increase in numbers of people who were finding their news online, and many people were also adding online consumption to their existing news habits. This has caused the amount of time spent on news to actually increase over the past few years, the center’s research shows, to the point where overall time spent is as high as it was 15 years ago…

More than a third of those surveyed said that they got news from both digital and traditional sources, which the Pew Center said suggests that “instead of replacing traditional news platforms, Americans are increasingly integrating new technologies into their news consumption habits.”

I’d call this good news.

Wonder what sort of ideologue, pundit or pipsqueak would say otherwise?