Fox News and Tribune Newspapers have overtaken The New York Times in the latest rankings for most visited current events websites, Editor and Publisher reports.

Yahoo! News was the most popular news and current events website, with over 39 million unique users, according to the Nielsen December figures for top news websites. It was followed by the CNN Digital Network, the MSNBC Digital Network, and then AOL News.

The Fox News Digital Network took out fifth place and Tribune Newspapers was sixth. The Times came next at seventh. It had been in the fifth spot in November.

Unique visitors at the Times fell 18% year-on-year to 14.8 million. Other sites experienced a drop as well: MSNBC was down 20% year-on-year to 32.2 million uniques, while Tribune Newspapers fell a more modest 5% to 15.8 million.

Editor and Publisher points out the difficulty in comparing figures from late 2009 and late 2008, after a presidential election and in the midst of the economic crisis. Of course, circulation has to be measured consistently, though, as there will always be major news events at unpredictable times. Changes to the Nielsen research process could also affect the year-on-year measurement.

Google News, ABCNEWS Digital Network, and Gannett Newspapers and Newspaper Division rounded out the top ten.

The New York Times has just announced plans to charge for content on its website from 2011. Will this drive readership down even further? Or will it save the newspaper?

Source: Editor and Publisher