Even with the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States less than a year old and American troops still in Afghanistan, young people continue to "tune out" news, said Joe Losco, political science professor.

"The greatest decline is among the young who never acquired an appetite for daily news," he said. "The young are more likely to be news grazers, who check news from time to time from various outlets, including the Internet, with only mild interest."

The latest survey from the Pew Research Center said respondents under 25 are increasingly ignoring the news with 37 percent claiming to have consumed no news, either from television, newspapers or radio, in the previous day. Only 26 percent under 30 had read a newspaper in the last 24 hours.

Losco said a striking finding is that roughly two-thirds of respondents lose interest in news stories because they lack sufficient background information.

"This points to a real failure of our educational institutions to give young people the tools they need to follow the news," he said.

Bob Papper, telecommunications professor, said the recent surveys are not breaking new ground because young people have always been less interested in news than their more established counterparts.

"In the past people, did not become news consumers until they got older, got married, had children and bought homes," he said. "However, there's some evidence that isn't happening now. Or, at least not at the same rate."

Robert Pritchard, a public relations professor and former military public affairs officer, believes part of the reason for a lack of news interest is due to expansion of e-mail and the Internet.

"Teens are staying abreast of what's happening through e-mail with their friends and the Internet," he said. "Also, they see news today as full of 'more of the same.' To them, it is not worth the time to watch or read the news."

A contributing factor may be the trauma of repeatedly watching video of the passenger planes slamming into the World Trade Center and the buildings' subsequent collapse.

"This probably has led to a news aversion among young people," Pritchard said. "They got tired of watching it over and over. Instead, they just turned it off and never turned it on again."

(NOTE TO EDITORS: For more information, contact Losco at jlosco@bsu.eduor (765) 285-8982; Papper at rpapper@bsu.eduor (765) 285-5397; and Pritchard at rpritchard@bsu.edu or (765) 285-9104.)