The news industry is more troubled than it was a year ago, and the problems are different from what was expected. So begins the Project for Excellence in Journalism’s 2008 State of the Media report.
The report lists the following major trends:
- News is shifting from being a product — today’s newspaper, Web
site or newscast — to becoming a service — how can you help me, even
empower me? - A news organization and a news Web site are no longer final destinations. Rather, they’re stops, places to find out where to dig deeper.
- The prospects for user-created content, once thought possibly
central to the next era of journalism, for now appear more limited,
even among “citizen” sites and blogs. Best citizen input comes as story ideas, sources, sometimes pictures or video. - Increasingly, the newsroom is perceived as the more innovative and experimental part of the news industry. It’s the business side that has that “deer-in-the-headlights” look.
- The agenda of the American news media continues to narrow, not broaden. Coverage of Iraq and the U.S. presidential elections filled one-quarter of newspaper newshole in 2007.
For more about what this means, see this column by Poynter media business analyst Rick Edmonds. He notes that:
- According to TMS Media Intelligence, news sites are now clearly trailing the overall growth of Web advertising.
- “Citizen” sites and blogs do not fare better economically; for
them, too, assembling an audience is hard to transfer into advertising
sales. - By most measures (though the metrics are still inexact), the
audience for news is actually growing when online is included along
with print circulation. - News sites get high marks for innovation, and in 2007 they
showed their willingness to connect to outside destinations rather than
being “walled gardens.”
Those of you considering careers in journalism will enter a changed, and changing industry. As technology-minded media consumers, you’re fueling the new dynamic. Perhaps your ideas about reporting, informing the public and telling people’s stories will serve the democracy better than ever … and be financially sustainable.
