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The State of the News Media 2006

Submitted by kpaul.mallasch on Tue, 03/21/2006 - 4:43am.

This has been out for a little while now, but I still want to break it up some and give my own opinion. I did something similar last year at J-Log. The intro to this year's edition seems to say, print might not be dying so suddenly, but even more important is that we don't let journalism (the ideals) die. There are fewer people covering news. Not a lot of independents have stepped up to the plate yet, though. (One nugget in the intro is that they found 5% of blog posts to be what journalists would call journalism. I'd like more on that. Let's continue, though.)

Overview:

From the intro:

For two years, we have tracked in this report the major trends in the American news media (See Previous Reports). What is occurring, we have concluded, is not the end of journalism that some have predicted. But we do see a seismic transformation in what and how people learn about the world around them. Power is moving away from journalists as gatekeepers over what the public knows. Citizens are assuming a more active role as assemblers, editors and even creators of their own news. Audiences are moving from old media such as television or newsprint to new media online. Journalists need to redefine their role and identify which of their core values they want to fight to preserve —something they have only begun to consider.

...snip...

Yet the changes will probably also make it easier for power to move in the dark. And the open technology that allows citizens to speak will also help special interests, posing as something else, to influence or even sometimes overwhelm what the rest of us know.

The worry is not the wondrous addition of citizen media, but the decline of full-time, professional monitoring of powerful institutions.

The thing is, I think their worry may be a little overrated. That is, I think as we figure out easy to follow business models, more journalists will become independent publishers, helping teach citizens how to tell their stories and weeding out the 'dark shadows' - even showing the citizens how to spot them.

I see what they're saying, of course, but I also see hope - I see trained journalists working independently, not just for the big companies. We just need to fine tune the biz model a little, though. ;)

These are the things they said to watch out for in 2006:

The new paradox of journalism is more outlets covering fewer stories.

The species of newspaper that may be most threatened is the big-city metro paper that came to dominate in the latter part of the 20th century.
At many old-media companies, though not all, the decades-long battle at the top between idealists and accountants is now over. (ED: good guys lost...)
That said, traditional media do appear to be moving toward technological innovation — finally (ED: still too slowly, though...)
The new challengers to the old media, the aggregators, are also playing with limited time. (ED: i.e. the other big boys, Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc...)
The central economic question in journalism continues to be how long it will take online journalism to become a major economic engine, and if it will ever be as big as print or television.

Their last point reminds me of their first - about a redistribution of media power - more companies owning less of the pie (which brings about competition/innovation/etc...) which is a good thing.

The thing I keep hearing, though, is that we need trained journalists. I agree.

Day in the Life of the Media:

Last year they looked at a sample month of news. This time around, they looked at a single day so they could "see how an individual event was covered up close, to get a feel beyond the numbers."

What did they learn?

What people learn depends heavily on where they go for news. The medium may not be the message, but it no doubt influences
When audiences did encounter the same story in different places, often they heard from a surprisingly small number of sources.
The incremental and even ephemeral nature of what the media define as news is striking. Few of what would emerge as the top stories this day would be remembered months later — or even, a search of data bases reveals, get much coverage within a day or two.
While the news is always on, there is not a constant flow of new events. The level of repetition in the 24-hour news cycle is one of the most striking features one finds in examining a day of news

I like that they have 'blogs' as a section in their Day in the Life part of the study.

Highlights:

Online: “The Internet,” we found, describes a technology, not a style of media or a set of values or even a journalistic approach. The seven news Web sites we monitored varied widely — from Google’s emphasis on speed and bulk to Yahoo’s focus on navigability to a local TV news station’s site, largely a portal for advertising copy.

Blogs: If the media culture needs navigators, by day’s end the seven popular blogs we studied would offer that — to an extent. As the hours went by, the bloggers sifted through the content of the mainstream media and noted what they deemed important, curious, absent, interesting or objectionable. But contrary to the charge that the blogosphere is purely parasitic, we also found new topics here, and new angles on old ones.

Cable News: Up close, the striking thing about much of cable news, the first 24-hour medium, is a fixation with whatever is happening at the moment. The result is a good deal of repetition and a good deal that is ephemeral. (ED: heh. )

Network: The contrast between the network nightly and morning news is so striking that the term network TV news almost seems a misnomer.

Newspapers: If ink on paper has an advantage, the day would suggest it is in the number of boots on the ground. This is the medium that is covering the most topics, has the deepest sourcing, explores the most angles in stories, and for now is supplying most of the content for the Internet. (ED: so, new media independents, listen up, we want to be like newspapers, not like cable news...)

Local TV: Local TV, at least in the three cities studied, focused on what news managers apparently thought people could use, traffic and weather, and what they were worried about, accidents and crime. Take out traffic, weather and sports, indeed, and half of all the newshole — and an even greater percentage of lead stories — was devoted to crime and accidents.

Radio: Contrary to the notion that radio news is all syndicated national material, we found local radio news today to be very local — but also limited in scope. What listeners get is headlines read from wires, adapted from the newspaper, or provided by national networks.

What did I get out of all that? Well, as I said, new media independents should modeling themselves off of the newspapers - taking it further, though, of course. Again and again, though, from what I saw in the study, a lot of the 'original news' comes from the newspapers.

Lots and lots of other great tidbits here. Go read the whole thing.

Newspapers

Here they wonder if instead of the extinction of newspapers we're seeing an orderly switch to new business models. They still think it could go the other way, though, especially if newspapers don't embrace new media.

Overall, in the newspaper world, it was downward numbers - from circulation, to stock prices, to number of employees in the newsrooms. Of course, the Knight Ridder sale is discussed, as that's a pretty big chunk of the newspaper market share.

Online:

The web continues to grow up.

From the study:

Heading into 2006, it was clear that Americans eye the Internet with an increasingly complicated perspective. The appeal of the Web is its convenience, interactivity, diversity and control. Yet the more people use the Web, they less they trust it. The most trusted sites of all increasingly are those from the old-legacy media. Even people who enjoy blogs, for instance, are suspicious of them. They go for the energy, argument and authenticity they find there, not hard information. The public, it increasingly appears, accesses different parts of the Internet for different reasons.

The biggest questions remain those that touch the bottom line. Online journalism, in 2006, is still young. Like an adolescent, it is learning what it can do. It is even making a little money. But it is still not really paying its own way. And it isn’t entirely sure what it will be doing when it grows up.

Network TV:

A lot of talk here about the 'changing of the guard' on the Nightly Network News circuit. What effect would it have?

Of course, there's talk of the web in this sector as well, especially among those companies who are doing well.

From the study:

In 2006, the popular press would no doubt focus on the choice CBS News makes for a new anchor. How would he or she compare with the anchors of old? Would the choice boost ratings?

Five years from now, however, we may look back and think the most important changes of the year in network news were about other things. Did the three news divisions really begin to innovate television news on the Internet? Did they start to see broadcasting as no longer their core delivery platform for news? To what extent did they start to see their TV channels as a way to drive traffic to the next generation of television news, online?

The answers did not come in 2005, nor were they likely to come in 2006. But the conversation looks to have finally begun.

Cable TV:

Fox News is growing, CNN is in neutral, and MSNBC is going in reverse. (Well, relatively. That is, Fox is looking the best...) And again, the switch to online is mentioned.
From the study:

The bigger question may involve the migration of news consumers online. While all three channels have well-established web sites, and are trying to create a common experience between the two outlets, the question is whether they can convert their brands as places to go for news instantaneously as well as for depth. This is more so given that older media, including newspapers and the old networks, appear to be accelerating their efforts at offering news in real time.

Again, what branch of the media typically did best with the in depth stuff - the newspaper and the magazine. Can Cable News do that type of journalism? I don't think so, which is why they may not be a big force in the online realm - unless they change their ways.

Local TV:

Here the study suggests that revenues are high (super high even), but that audiences are stagnant and Local TV isn't doing anything innovative to maintain their huge profit margins. Again, online comes up. (They're not doing it very well...)

From the study:

The more worrisome picture, experts believe, is in the newsroom. Though the data are harder and harder to pin down, the best evidence suggests that TV journalists continue to be stretched thin, required to produce more programs and making the conversion to the Web — usually without a commensurate increase in their budget. Money is also being diverted to make the transition to digital. And it is not only the on air-product that’s suffering; the effort in these new areas, especially online, is probably not what it should be.

Our content analysis, this year as in the past, seems to reinforce those worries. In our Day in the Life of the News study, local TV news stories emerged as the most thinly sourced and shallowly reported of any medium studied other than local radio (DITL Local News). What’s more, some of the stereotypes about local news seemed to be borne out in the data. Roughly half of all the newshole on local TV news that was not given over to weather, traffic and sports was devoted to crime and accidents. Stories about local institutions, government, infrastructure, education and more were generally relegated to brief anchor reads in the middle of the newscast.

Yet despite the problems, people like local news, partly for the simple reason that it is local. And it is increasingly formatted to help people with their lives, particularly in the early morning, when it offers a snapshot of headlines and late-breaking stories, and can help people figure out how best to get to work and tell them what the weather will be like. Indeed, in the entire media landscape, probably no source offers coverage of the weather outlook with the depth and sophistication of this industry.

Magazines:

As in most of the other branches, circulation is down and the newsrooms are shrinking. Some niches are up, though, like Celebrity Magazines, which had a great year.

From the study:

For news titles in particular, the questions coming out of 2005 have to do with what is next. The Week’s growth presents an interesting dilemma for the mainstream magazines. Its format, which relies on accounts from other publications, is inherently cheaper to produce than a format based on bureaus and correspondents. Can the mainstream titles compete in that market? And as circulation grows at the Economist and the New Yorker, is it possible that the mass, broad-topic news magazine simply isn’t going to be dominant in the future on the news side? Is the news market itself segmenting and, if so, where does that leave the Big Three news titles?

Ethnic / Alternative

From the study:

The ethnic media continued to grow in 2005 with the continuing growth in immigration in the U.S. And while some of the data are soft, and there were even signs of declines in the circulation of print publications, the general picture was robust. Indeed, according to one survey conducted for an association of ethnic media outlets in 2005, about 51 million Americans, 24% of the adult population, are either primary or secondary consumers of ethnic media.

Journalist Survey

Introduction | Commentary
| Survey Findings
| Methodology
| Questionnaire

This is actually from their "State of the Media 2004" study, but they have a note that they'll be conducting a new survey in the coming months. Something to look forward to, I'm sure.

Overall, there's a lot here to digest, but I suggest you spend some time looking over all of it because it's important.

What were your thoughts on this year's report?