TV, newspapers declining: Americans are getting more of their news from Web sites and radio stations and less from TV and newspapers, according to a new report. The amount of news and information people say they get from the Web rose by 1.9% over last year, to 14.6%, according to the ARAnet Survey. The same poll found that 19.4% of the news people are getting comes from the radio, up 2.9%. The amount of information people are getting from newspapers fell by 4.1%, to 19.4%. Television remained the biggest source of news, with to 31.1% of the information people get coming from there. But that was down from the 34.7% share reported a year ago. The survey of more than 1,000 people found that households with incomes of more than $100,000 annually get more news and information from online sources, along with other key demographics such as college graduates, the 18-to-34 market and Hispanics.
Strategic defaults: A study of more than 24 million credit files found that homeowners with high credit scores are 50% more likely to abruptly abandon a mortgage than borrowers with low scores, reports the Los Angeles Times. The study by Experian, a national credit bureau, and Oliver Wyman, a consulting firm, found that “strategic defaulters”—those who walk away from mortgages—often go straight from perfect payment histories to making no payments at all. Most strategic defaulters are found in markets where home prices cratered since 2006, such as California and Florida. Read the story here.
