David Bauder

The steady loss of local newspapers and journalists across the country contributes to the nation’s political polarization, a new study has found. According to research published in the Journal of Communication, with fewer opportunities to find out about local politicians, citizens are more likely to turn to national sources like cable news and apply their feelings about national politics to people running for the town council or state legislature. The result is much less “split ticket” voting, or people whose ballot includes votes for people of different parties.

While President Donald Trump’s attacks on the media are usually centered on national outlets like CNN and The New York Times, the attitudes unleashed have filtered down to journalists on the street covering news in local communities across the country. When a president describes the press as enemies of the people, “attitudes shift and the field crews get the brunt of the abuse,” wrote Lori Bentley-Law, a television news photographer for Los Angeles; KNBC-TV. “And it’s not just from one side.

President Donald Trump’s campaign-style rallies have found a receptive audience at Fox News Channel, which unlike the other cable news networks often carries his speeches live and in their entirety. Four times in the past few weeks, Fox has set aside its usual prime-time programming to air the president speaking live to supporters at events in South Carolina, Minnesota, North Dakota and West Virginia. The network also promised live coverage of a Trump rally July 5 in Montana, where Sen Jon Tester (D-MT) faces a tough fight for re-election.

President Donald Trump managed to avoid questions about hot-button issues facing the White House — such as the future of national security adviser Michael Flynn and a North Korean missile launch — in a news conference where selected reporters asked non-challenging questions and other, shouted-out inquiries were ignored. The president selected his questioners: Scott Thuman from Washington's local ABC News affiliate and Kaitlan Collins of The Daily Caller, a conservative website founded in 2010 by Fox News Channel anchor Tucker Carlson. "Personnel questions are interesting, but our readers want substance. They don't want Washington bull----. They want to know where the next war is going to be," Collins said.

A CBS survey of 700 people in the United States with Internet and television connections conducted in 2013 found that 28% said they're watching more television than they did the year before.

Seventeen percent say they're watching less, with the remainder indicating their habits are unchanged. That may not seem like much, but there's a long history of people saying they are watching, or plan to watch, less TV -- even as Nielsen measurements proved the opposite is true.

The World Cup kicks off in Sao Paulo with home team Brazil going up against Croatia in the opener of the world's most popular sporting event.

All 64 soccer matches will air in English in the United States on ESPN, ESPN2 or ABC. Univision and its associated networks -- UniMas, Galavision and Univision Deportes -- will broadcast the games in Spanish.

Here are some media questions heading into the World Cup:

• Will the World Cup be profitable for ESPN?
• Who will turn into TV combatants?
• Is social media ready for the World Cup?

Ellen DeGeneres' celeb-studded selfie from the most-watched Oscars telecast in a decade was a landmark social media moment at a time online conversation is boosting television viewership and vice versa. It's also a murky example of what is or isn't product placement in a hyper-marketed world. Would the world's most retweeted photo have been shot by an iPhone if Samsung hadn't been a commercial sponsor of the Academy Awards?

The Oscars are generally the most-watched TV event of the year after the Super Bowl. The ratings provide further evidence of how big event programming is a growth engine for broadcast networks, in large part because of fans watching the event and conversing with friends on tablets and smartphones.

Twitter said that some 14.7 million tweets mentioning the Oscars or prominent actors and films were sent out during the telecast, and Facebook said there were 25.4 million interactions about the show. Social media was clearly a driving force and is why live events on networks "have become basically the currency," co-producer Neil Meron said. "What it's all about right now is creating a conversation, and social media allows for the conversation as it's happening," he said.