Whither Goest the Newspaper?

The latest report on American media says journalism is reaching a pivot point

The news and information industry is not only undergoing a continued revolution; it is reaching a pivot point in reshaping journalism, reports one of the most authoritative voices in American mass communications.

The most recent annual report on the state of the media from the Pew Charitable Trust notes that the pace of change wrought by the Internet, multi-channel TV and other "splintering [of audiences] across ever more platforms" is accelerating, causing more news organizations to become "more niche players."

The report – the fourth so far, produced in partnership with the venerated Poynter Institute, a non-profit training and professional education center for journalists – paints a picture of unprecedented upheaval in the news business. First, newspapers are focusing on what the Wall Street Journal calls "hyper localis." For example, the Boston Globe is closing foreign bureaus, while the Atlanta Journal-Constitution has narrowed its geographic area of coverage.

Secondly, the report says, "Journalism is becoming a smaller part of people's information mix. The press is no longer gatekeeper of what the public knows."

Overall, the sizes of audiences for conventional media – newspapers, television, radio is flat to down, although audiences for ethnic media have been growing.

However, not all is gloom and doom. "The public does appreciate what the press has to do, and in some ways it does so increasingly," the report says.

For example, just after September 11, a majority of Americans favored government censorship over press freedom, by 53 percent to 39 percent. By February 2006, the reverse was the case, with a majority favoring press freedom 56 to 34 percent

Also, a slim majority of Americans say they enjoy keeping up with the news, "a key indicator of news consumption," and this number has been stable for years.

And 68 percent said they prefer getting news from sources that don't have a particular point of view, while only 23 percent wanted to get the news from a source that shared their point of view.

The report is available at http://stateofthemedia.org/2007

Online Journalism Booming While newsrooms are shrinking alarmingly quickly, many major daily newspapers are seeing mushrooming growth in online readers, according to Editor and Publisher magazine and the Nielsen research company. As of 2008, some newspapers have seen a doubling in numbers of online readers in just a year. The Vanishing Newspaper Is the daily newspaper dying? Or just catching its breath for a new competitive sprint in a different format? The Pew Charitable Trust's annual report on American media says people appreciate journalism perhaps as much as ever. But mass communications is reaching a pivot point in accelerating changes. Moms Mad for the Web Parents are among the highest users of the Internet, significantly outpacing couples and singles without children, according to a variety of sources.