As Barack Obama marched towards the White House and the economy plunged, more Americans ditched newspapers for the internet.

For the first time, more Americans are getting their news online than from traditional ink and paper, although the popularity of television still eclipses all other forms of media.

In an apparently sharp shift in habits, the Washington-based Pew Research Centre found that the number of consumers using the web as a main news source surged from 24% to 40% in a year, overtaking the 35% who rely on newspapers. Television slipped from 74% to 70%.

The change is yet another blow to the newspaper industry. Papers across the US are cutting jobs, closing bureaux and trimming costs as they try to adjust to a collapse in advertising revenue.

Experts say that media economics is up in the air. Sree Sreenivasan, a new media professor at Columbia Journalism School in New York, said: "The problem is that advertising dollars from newspapers are being replaced by digital pennies."

Younger people are migrating towards the web quickly. Among the under-29s, the web leaped from 34% to 59% as the leading source of news, tying with television, with newspapers lagging at 28%.

Sreenivasan added: "Keep in mind that most online news people read still uses a lot of newspaper-sourced copy that has been put on line. It's still a lot of traditional media that's feeding this."

Many fear for newspapers. One of the US's biggest publishers, Tribune, filed for bankruptcy this month as it struggled with $13bn of debt. Its titles include the Los Angeles Times. Sales of US papers dropped by 4.6% in the six months to September, said the Audit Bureau of Circulations.

Economic events have sparked interest among readers. The Pew Centre found that America's dip towards a recession was the most popular story of the year, with 70% following it "very closely". The presidential election was relegated to fourth.