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Michael Lipka

Associate Director, Research

Expertise:News and Information

Michael Lipka is an associate director of research at Pew Research Center, where he studies Americans’ experiences with news and information. Over more than a decade at the Center, he has been a part of several major projects related to the information environment, including our study of news influencers, our five-year lookback at the COVID-19 pandemic, and our surveys on how Americans consume local news and election news. Michael also spent several years writing about trends in religion in the U.S. and globally, contributing to dozens of reports and short reads on various topics. He has a degree in journalism from Boston University and started his career as a sportswriter for The Boston Globe and the Associated Press.

Publications

short readsNov 3, 2015

5 key findings about religiosity in the U.S. – and how it’s changing

Our new report finds that whether U.S. adults are becoming more or less religious depends, in part, on how religious observance is measured.
short readsOct 30, 2015

18% of Americans say they’ve seen a ghost

An even greater share – 29% – say they have felt in touch with someone who has already died.
short readsOct 26, 2015

Most U.S. Catholics hope for change in church rule on divorce, Communion

62% of U.S. Catholics think the church should allow Catholics who have been divorced and remarried without an annulment to receive Communion.
short readsOct 5, 2015

California legalizes assisted suicide amid growing support for such laws

Two-thirds of Americans say doctors should be allowed by law to assist patients who are terminally ill and living in severe pain to commit suicide.
short readsSep 25, 2015

Catholics, especially Hispanics, echo pope’s call to embrace immigrants

Nearly nine-in-ten Hispanic Catholics (88%) say that undocumented immigrants who meet certain requirements should be able to stay in the U.S.
short readsSep 21, 2015

A closer look at Catholics in Washington, New York and Philadelphia

On his first papal trip to the U. S., Pope Francis will visit three Northeastern cities that are within a few hundred miles of each other. But while New York City, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., may be geographically close, their Catholic populations look different from one another in several ways.
short readsSep 14, 2015

A closer look at Catholic America

The face of Catholic America is changing. Today, immigrants make up a considerable share of Catholics, and many are Hispanic. At the same time, there has been a regional shift, from the Northeast (long home to a large percentage of the Catholic faithful) and Midwest to the Western and Southern parts of the U.S.
short readsSep 9, 2015

Relatively few U.S. Catholics skipped annulment because of cost or complications

Pope Francis has announced major changes to the Roman Catholic Church’s procedures for marriage annulments. While the new changes are aimed at making annulments faster and less expensive, a recent Pew Research survey found that most divorced U.S. Catholics who did not seek annulments did not cite the complicated nature of the process as a reason.
short readsSep 2, 2015

45% of Americans have a connection to Catholicism

The new Pew Research Center survey of U.S. Catholics provides an opportunity to take stock of Americans’ Catholic identity – not just people who identify primarily as Catholics, but the entire spectrum of those whose lives have crossed paths with the Catholic Church in a meaningful way.
short readsSep 2, 2015

Key findings about American Catholics

Pew Research Center asked American Catholics for their views about family structures, religious beliefs and practices and other topics. Here are 6 facts from the new survey.