[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 102 (Monday, June 17, 2024)]
[Senate]
[Page S4118]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                 MEDIA

  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, with me today is one of my colleagues in 
my office, Mr. Christian Amy.
  Mr. President, I want to talk for a few minutes about America, about 
Washington, DC, and about Louisiana.
  Every time I leave Washington, DC, and go back home to America, I am 
reminded of how parochial Washington, DC, can be, how removed it can 
be, how unaware it can be. We often hear people in the city where our 
Capitol sits say: Well, the American people just don't understand. The 
American people--you often hear--just don't know what they are talking 
about. They don't know what we know. They don't read the news. They 
don't keep up like we do.
  So, recently, I conducted a poll to test that point of view, and some 
were surprised with the results of the poll. I was not. One of the 
questions I asked in the poll of the people of Louisiana is, How 
frequently would you say they follow the news?
  About 70 percent of my people in Louisiana follow the news every 
single day because--actually, it is 67.8 percent. Some of my colleagues 
back home were surprised by that. I was not; 23.5 percent said a few 
times a week; and only 6.4 percent of my people don't consult the news 
or read the news very often.
  I also, out of curiosity, tested a poll where my people were 
receiving their news: 39 percent of the people of Louisiana--70 percent 
of whom follow the news every single day--get their news from cable TV. 
Another 21.1 percent get their news from morning and evening broadcast 
television, not cable--local television news and national television 
news.
  So, I guess, from one point of view--and I think the numbers bear 
this out in Louisiana--in terms of the source of news, television is 
king. Television is king.
  Seventy percent--or, rather, sixty percent of my people, most of whom 
follow the news every single day, get their news either from cable TV, 
from the national evening and morning news, and from local television 
evening and morning news.
  Twenty-seven percent of my people get their news primarily from the 
internet. To break that down, it is about 12.6 percent from social 
media apps--Facebook, Twitter; 4.7--almost 5 percent--from YouTube; and 
another 9.1 percent from Apple News, Google News, and those sorts of 
sites on the internet.
  So television news for both national and, particularly, local is king 
in Louisiana, with 60 percent of the people saying that is my go-to 
news source, but the internet is also a substantial factor at 27 
percent: 27 percent of my people--70 percent of whom read the news 
every day--get their news from the internet.
  Radio news is also important in my State. Seven percent of my people 
and change listen to radio news as their primary source of news. Coming 
in last--consistent with national trends--only 4 percent of my people 
receive their news today from newspapers. My, how the world has 
changed.
  I just found these numbers to be interesting. The source of news for 
most of my people was interesting to me, but I was very, very pleased 
to find that 70 percent of my people in Louisiana read the news every 
single day, and in most cases, they get it from television but also the 
internet and radio as well.
  Sometimes we get along in Washington in terms of our perceptions of 
what is going on in the real America.
  With that, I yield the floor.

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