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

by David T.Z. Mindich

Our democracy is on the brink of a crisis, David Mindich argues in Tuned Out . As more and more young people turn their backs on political news, America is seeing the greatest decline in informed citizenship in its history. The implications for overall civic engagement are also enormous.
Crisscrossing the country, from Boston to New Orleans and Los Angeles, Mindich has interviewed scores of young Americans about how they keep up with the young professionals, college students, and even some preteens. What he discovers is a group that knows less, cares less, votes less,
and follows the news less than their elders do and less than their elders did. Noting that the problem is reaching almost unfathomable proportions (the median viewer age of network television news is now 60), Mindich explores the roots of the problem, including the powerful lure of entertainment,
which in recent years has grown exponentially--from MTV and ESPN to Nakednews.com--far overshadowing serious news programs. The challenge, Mindich says, is to create a society in which young people feel that reading quality journalism is worthwhile. Some newspapers have responded to the problem by
pandering, adding Britney Spears and subtracting John Ashcroft. But in trying to make news matter to young people, the author notes, they make it matter to no one. Tuned Out offers a number of innovative responses to this problem, from requiring every channel to carry news as part of its children's
programming to transforming college admissions policies, to changing journalism itself.
Written in the spirit of Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone , this book illuminates a serious problem in our society, a problem that will only grow worse as older Americans retire and the "tuned out" young must take their place as leaders.

Genres: Nonfiction, Journalism

192 pages, Hardcover

First published August 13, 2004

About the author

avid Mindich is a professor of media studies, journalism & digital arts. He has been at Saint Michael's College since 1996 and has served nine of those years as chair, ending in 2012.

Before coming to St. Michael's, Mindich worked as an assignment editor for CNN and earned a doctorate in American Studies from New York University. He has written articles for the Wall Street Journal, New York Magazine, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Wilson Quarterly, and other publications. He is the author of Just the Facts: How "Objectivity" Came to Define American Journalism and Tuned Out: Why Americans Under 40 Don't Follow the News (Oxford University Press, 2005), a book Walter Cronkite called "very important....a handbook for the desperately needed attempt to inspire in the young generation a curiosity that generates the news habit."

Since the publication of Tuned Out, Mindich has given talks about young people and news to media groups (including the New York Times and USA Today) and at schools around the country.

Mindich founded Jhistory, an Internet group for journalism historians, in 1994. In 1998-1999, he was head of the History Division of the AEJMC. In 2002, the AEJMC awarded Mindich the Krieghbaum Under-40 Award for Outstanding Achievement in Research, Teaching and Public Service. In 2006, CASE and the Carnegie Foundation named Mindich the Vermont Professor of the Year. In 2011, he was named New England Journalism Educator of the Year by the New England Newspaper & Press Association.

Reviews

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is focused on an interview survey instrument that reveals most young Americans have very little knowledge of civics or current events.

I do not think Mindich is overstating things when he writes, "Because they have ceded their own political power, the majority of young Americans who are tuned out pose a huge danger to their own generation; when they are ready to become leaders, they will pose a huge danger to democracy itself. this chilling image focuses me and should focus you, too."" [p127]

We are seeing the effect of low-information voting in the 2016 presidential elections, but a decade after this book was published there still seems to be no good strategy (aside from traditional newspapers) to pay reporters who cover state and local politics.

[Kendra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you Dr. Jackson and the Public and the Media Course. Thanks to this wake-up call I now read the newspaper religiously each morning with a steaming cup of black coffee.

[Erik · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is one of those book titles that either shocks, or makes you nod your head as you think, “Tell me something I don’t already know.” However you slice and dice it, this quick and engaging read is bound to surprise even the most curmudgeonly of readers and newshounds. Mindich, Associate Professor of Journalism and Mass Communication at Saint Michael’s College, tracks data going back the past forty-some years to effectively show that news reader- and viewership is at historic lows – even with the advent of the Internet and instant political news and blogging. Although his own surveys and anecdotal data is statistically dubious at times, his profiles of young people – those both consumed by and those anathema to current events and news – show that there is, and probably always be, hope that we can turn back in our youngest generations (myself and my fellow Gen-Xers included).

So as not to make you walk away thinking that all is bleak, Mindich does detail numerous ways in which educators, educational policy makers, as well as a the various news agencies (print, internet, television, and radio): diversifying newspaper ownership and broadcasts, reinstating the public trust that was dismantled in the 80’s that once promoted news and public affairs programming for kids, advocating civics requirements in education (thwarted and stymied by the culture wars in recent decades), making politics meaningful and relevant, and advocating for quality journalism through monetary investment and higher educational standards. Perhaps a tall order for the pessimist – of which I am not – but a thorough prescription for much needed change nonetheless.

[Erik · Rating 2 out of 5]

Eh. This book was mediocre, at best in my opinion. I think everyone knows why not too many young folk watch the news, and this book is just redundant. Also I think Mindich is biased as well- he never mentions FOX or the Wall Street Journal. It's all about MSNBC and the New York Times. I read this as a part of a course, and I'm glad it's over.

[Bibliophile607 · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some books would be better as a short article. This is one of them. The stats are interesting and can stand alone without all the filler verbiage.