We were told to put anything we absolutely wanted to get across in the first paragraph, because most readers who were caught by a headline (about 70% as a rule of thumb) would read the first paragraph.

We were told to put anything that we considered important but not vital in the second paragraph, because about half the readers would read that as well.

The rest of any article would be read by:
-people who already had a great interest in the topic;
-those whose interest was picqued by the first two paragraphs and had the time to spare;
-news junkies, who read the whole paper (a small minority);
-experts in a field related to the article's topic, who were looking for support or errors; and
-people who knew someone involved in the event reported.
All of those folks together amounted, as an estimate, to about 20% of the readership.

People generally do read part of the paper because they bought it and want their money's worth. Maybe it's only the front page, maybe it's the obituaries, maybe it's the funnies and the editorials.

With me, it's usually all those, plus Dear Abby, the book page when there is one, the front page of the local section in our local paper, Page 2 (international news), and the back page. But the rest is a quick skim and then used for papier-mache, mostly. My time is short. I already demonstrated here (embarrassingly) that I sometimes only read the first paragraph, and I should know better with this bunch.

I wonder how the internet has affected reading patterns re: news. I can preselect my news, and search for only the things I want to see, without even getting the benefit of headlines for things that I might not have thought of or might not want to think of. Also, if we haven't paid for it, explicitly, do we really feel the need to read it attentively, that is, for comprehension?