Email newsletters top news source for business executives

Almost 1,000 executives from the top tiers of their respective organizations were surveyed for Quartz’s Global Executive Study. It found that email was one of their first three news sources checked each day – 60% of top execs read an email newsletter compared with 43% who accessed news via mobile web, 28% opened a news app and just 16% visited a news website on a desktop.

For sources of industry-specific news, email newsletters also ranked first (56%) followed by industry/general news websites (55%), content produced by individuals in the industry (31%), information published by companies in the industry (24%) and industry news sites’ social media accounts (24%).

Executives that share information are, once again, most likely to use email to do so – 80% – compared to 43% via Twitter and 34% via Facebook and even 22% via sharing in person.

Overall, the executives surveyed were a very active on their mobile devices – half took the survey on such a device and 61% said the majority of their news consumption was via mobile (41% smartphones/20% tablets).

Other key findings from the report include:

– 61% subscribe to magazines and newspapers but just 3% said print was a primary source of news;

– Three-quarters spend half and hour or more a day catching up with the news while for 44% this is an activity they carry out first thing in the morning;

– Just over a third pay for digital news (37%).