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Who'll Be Left to Write the Media's Obituary?
By: Loren Wassell | 03/25/2009
The Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism has just published its sixth annual Report on American Journalism -- The State of the News Media. It chronicles and quantifies the decline in mainstream media we've been watching accelerate:
Some of the numbers are chilling.
Newspaper ad revenues have fallen 23% in the last two years. Some papers are in bankruptcy, and others have lost three-quarters of their value. By our calculations, nearly one out of every five journalists working for newspapers in 2001 is now gone, and 2009 may be the worst year yet.
In local television, news staffs, already too small to adequately cover their communities, are being cut at unprecedented rates; revenues fell by 7% in an election year—something unheard of—and ratings are now falling or are flat across the schedule. In network news, even the rare programs increasing their ratings are seeing revenues fall.
The full report runs some 180,000 words, creating a context for developments like the bankruptcy of the Chicago Tribune, the "effectively broke" state of GateHouse media (current owner of my alma mater, the Peoria (Ill.) Journal Star), and the recent shutdowns of Denver's Rocky Mountain News and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. It's summarized well by Michael Miner, the Hot Type media columnist and blogger for the Chicago Reader, a venerable "alternative" weekly whose new owners are themselves in bankruptcy.
Cable TV rose against the tide, riding interest in last fall's election, only to lose much of the gains.
Audiences are moving to the Internet, but advertisers aren't moving with them.
The Internet has many advantages as a distribution system for news, but most of the basic content still originates with the dwindling number of reporters still working for conventional media outlets or their Web affiliates.
When all the news comes from the Internet, where will the Internet get its news?
Posted in Digital Communications, Issues and Crisis Management, Public Relations
Jennifer says:
Fri, March 27, 2009 at 8:57:am
You are so right. Even internet news organizations need content. And shouldn’t they be able to command a premium for superb content? News and information is merely a commodity today. How do we inject perceived value into the news business? I still say I would pay more than $1.25 a day for a really fantastic “newspaper.” I might just read that news online. The New York Times tried this with its premium offering and obviously abandoned the model. So, what needs to change for people to be willing to pay for above-average news and information?