It’s Friday!
And I’m too busy to blog. On this blog, that is. Well, I guess I’m not that busy because I’m blogging. Hmmm… 
So I’m going to let you blog. Here’s a topic: State of the News Media 2006. Since 2004, the journalists at the Project for Excellence in Journalism have released an annual report on…the state of the news media.
Your assignment is to read the report or at least the overview section (including Major Trends, Content Analysis, etc.) and share your thoughts. This assignment is similar to the one I gave in the post on South Dakota and child killing. Serious comments only. In other words, if you don’t want to read the report or the overview, don’t comment.
Don’t let this influence you, but I wrote an op-ed about The State of the News Media 2004 and sent it to the Washington Post. An editor’s assistant called me to reject it. For a writer, a telephone rejection is a big deal.
I repeat, please don’t comment if you haven’t read the report or at least the overview (and all its subtopics).
Bonus points: write your own op-ed (700-word limit) about the report and send it to a newspaper. OK. Pencils sharpened? Test booklets open? Begin…now!
Related post: More Pew For You
(If you blog about the report, trackback to this post, and I’ll link to you.)
Bloggers:
- Customer Servant is blogging about the state of the news media.
- Maribel Hernandez is taking this assignment seriously! She called one of the report’s authors for clarification. See her comment.
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Not a lot of surprises in this summary.
One area I believe will determine the fate of papers, along with therir news, is the revenue they have been used to from advertising.
With the Internet, advertisers have a much more efficient means of reaching a lot of customers. No longer will those seeking used cars be limited to the want ads.
This stream of revenue will determine how efficiently papers are run.
An additional factor is the limited resources of bloggers. The New York Times has a lot more resources to sent reporters to events etc.. – so this part of the business will not go away.
Profits will determine if ideology trumps truth. For the NY Times, their profits have not sunk low enough for them to pursue truth over ideology. Only when sales slump below profits will this happen. I am not holding my breath.
I think one of the most fascinating aspects of the evolving media is the ability of bloggers to engage the traditional media in a conversation about their coverage of a particular story. The traditional media is now simply more accessible to the general public. Their opinions and biases are under the microscope. This is not just the big bloggers taking on the NY Times, but local bloggers engaging publicly with local reporters in a public forum about local issues.
With this scrutiny comes cynicism. For people who read or partake in any of the alternative media, the question of objectivity comes into play pretty consistently. Rush Limbaugh has made a career out of parsing paragraphs of major news stories to uncover the biases of the writers and editors. Bloggers have taken this to the next step by adding links that refute a media story, allowing a reader to make their own decision about the validity of an argument. News has become an interactive pastime.
As stated by the previous poster, profits will determine the fate of the traditional media. Most of the major news organizations have recognized the value of engaging in the online media. The lines have blurred between the traditional forms of media, which is an interesting aspect of the evolution. Reporters are bloggers and radio commentators, TV journalists write editorials, bloggers become commentators. Glenn Reynolds, a law professor at a southern university, is well known to the blog reading community and his books about the blogging phenomena have reached a greater audience than they otherwise would have thanks to his prominence in the new media.
There are much more opportunities for the general public to sound the clarion in this brave new world, despite its dependence on the traditional media for the meat of a story. This ongoing engagement, once the realignment of the traditional media’s role is settled, will form a symbiotic relationship that will keep one aspect of the media from triumphing over another.
The state-of-the-media report comes off like so much Titanic deck chair rearranging. We are in a major cultural shift regarding media.
While it’s still nice to sit down to a newspaper and a cup of coffee, there is the effort of filtering through the overwhelming bias stemming from the journalism establishment’s worldview.
Broadcast news? Forget it. Yesterday I heard CNN radio lead a newscast that initially sounded like it had something positive to say about the war in Iraq. I thought: can this be? On CNN? But of course, by the end of the story it was obviously just one more piece critical of the U.S. military. What is interesting is that I have been so conditioned to media bias that I was brought up short when I thought they were breaking their mold. But of course, they didn’t. And that’s a lot of the problem. And some major television network newscasts are starting to sound like a Rush Limbaugh parody of themselves.
Actually, it’s more than content that is driving many of us away from old media. Technology is making obsolete the business models of the recording industry, the publishing industry, and soon, I believe, Hollywood. Recording artists and authors can now distribute their product online and are limited only by the economies of scale that the old record labels and publishing houses can provide to promoting the products. But that will change, especially when many artists and writers see how little effort labels and publishers put into their work anyway. Soon, I believe, movies will be produced in out of way places like Tulsa and Richmond by people with less than $50,000 or $100,000 invested in digital equipment. They’ll be distributed online or direct-to-DVD in stores.
We now have several generations of people who grew up media savvy but powerless due to the barriers to entry in pre-internet days. Technology is changing that.
And as Frank Zavisca posted above, newspapers derive most of their revenue from advertising and the internet is changing how advertising functions.
La Shawn,
I just got off the phone with Dante Chinni, he wrote two of the chapters in the Annual Report on American Journalism. The receptionist asked where I was from. I told her La Shawn Barber gave her readers home work.
She asked: “are you a… blogger!†Yes, I said. After keeping me on hold for a while… Dante answered…hello. Immediately He said: “I know you bloggers hate us”. I said I don’t hate you.
I told Dante to please keep in mind when bloggers report news they get barked at if they make mistakes. They have to correct it or apologize to their audience. When you folks write your news you get edited…first.
I asked him to Please explain page two of the intro. 9th paragraph to me.
What power is moving in the dark? He said there is a lot of stuff that goes on in the dark in Washington, and if bloggers take over journalism who will blog about how the government intrudes into our lives.
I asked him: “What do “journalists” feel overwhelmed aboutâ€? He mentioned how blogsphere is growing and it can’t over power the print news.
And, what is it exactly “that you are overwhelmed about that the rest of you know about�
He mentioned how bloggers are getting too big, His answers were incongruent and unfocused.
Dante, if you are reading La Shawn’s blog please know not all bloggers hate you or your organization. We just want the unbiased reporting. Your answers on the phone to me about the Annual Report on American Journalism were bogus. And as for “beet†reporting you mentioned, how does that relate to my question I asked you.
Journalist no longer have exclusively title to the press. But, they know that. Crying won’t help.
I agree with Lee Rainie when he said “ bloggers have a lot to teach mainstream-ers about the virtues of opening up newsroom processes and making correctionsâ€.
In the “Conclusion paper†it reads: is whether consumers will care about the values that the old press embodies, or the brands—such as CBC and the New York Times—that represent those values.
How dare they talk about values when they lead “Crusadesâ€. Read: “Journalistic Fraud: How the New York Times Distorts the News & Why it Can No Longer be Trusted”
Good comments by: Frank, Robin, and Mike.
I think what is happening to newspapers is the same thing that is happening in the music industry. In the old days, you had to buy an entire album to get the one or two songs you really wanted. Now, you can go to iTunes and buy only the songs you really want. The same way with news today. I can do a quick scan on Yahoo News and select the few stories that really interest me, instead of buying a whole newspaper.
As requested, I read the overview.
I agree generally with the conclusions of the overview. However, I have to ask, as a conservative (read independent), why are not the the political leanings of each entity involved with the annual report not listed, i.e., left or right or middle?
It is my belief and opinion, that in our lexicon, the structure and use of words in whatever media, can influence readers. Therefore, it is important to know the “who” of a media piece so we can remove the meat from the push of a writer’s leanings.
I for one am glad the “power is moving away from journalists…” and that they no longer serve as the “gatekeepers” of what information I, as a citizen, may know. The blogs open up the world to me to read/see/hear from around the world…left/right/mean or green.
As to “power moving in the dark”, that is part of what having power is all about for those who have it, want it and finally acquire it: keeping the citizens in the dark has always been the goal. I don’t like it, so I am one of those citizens that appreciate blogs. When journalists refuse to print basic truth then who has had the “power moving in the dark” these many decades?
Let media of all kinds compete and perhaps we will get a better product than we have had forced down our throats the past forty years.
Why did the old media ever presume to be our “gatekeepers”? People resent being “kept” within any ideological plantation, especially by the overwhelmingly biased liberal media. So, we are moving to the more democratic blogosphere. I say: the faster the better.
Access, value, and demographics. That’s what it’s all about in my opinion.
Access: Most adults have a computer and a television. Most view them as a necessity.
Value: Most everyone wants to maximize value. Cable and ISP costs are relatively high, but give us a one-stop shop for news, entertainment,resources, etc. So, we cut other costs, such as newspapers and magazines which give us limited value.
Demographics: The babyboomers are the single biggest group of buyers and probably have the most disposable income of any age group. They will most certainly make choices which maximize value and their media preferences will tend toward the conservative. I believe that is why Fox News is growing so much. They also will have more time as they retire and will tend to utilize the internet more than ever before for news and entertainment.
Blogs: A harmless (for the most part) source of entertainment for adults of all ages. An endless source of places to gather and communicate. One of the few places where you can express yourself anonymously without fear of reprisal. A unique niche, but not a profitable one and not a substitute for hard news.
I didn’t really see the above type of evaluation in the overview. Just one person’s (mine) opinion.
Bah! Humbug!
I believe that newspapers will be around for a very long time, but the news people of today will have gone the way of the dodo.
Here is the operative quote, in my opinion, in the overview:
“On the other hand, the most sanguine reaction to those changes — that they simply reflect an older medium’s giving way to a newer one, and that citizens will have more choices than ever — strikes us as glib, even naïve.”
I suppose the whale oil lamp people thought Edison was “glib and naive” as well.
In the late 1950’s magazines folded by the hundreds in this country because television stole their thunder. As television news moved from a man reading from notes for 15 minutes to and hour of Huntley and Brinkley, the local newspapers had to scramble to fill their pages. People no longer depended upon them for national and international news.
Prior to the 1960’s there were star names in radio news. Television erased them, unless, like Cronkite, they were able to make the transition to TV.
The Movietone Newsreel at the theater bit the dust in the 1960’s, because television took over and people no longer made weekly trips to the movies.
I can not overstate how important 1968 was on changing the way news in the United States is reported. Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated (nearly on live TV) and Bobby Kennedy was assassinated (nearly on live TV) and the Chicago Seven tore up the Democrat convention (mostly on live TV.) The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution had unraveled and Lyndon Johnson stepped down after one term.
Cynicism reigned in the newsrooms and there was a palpable hatred for “Tricky Dick” Nixon who had resurrected himself and was steamrolling his way to victory. Nixon ran on peace at home (anti-Watts riots) and strength in victory overseas (Vietnam).
The news industry was made up largely of liberals who mourned the loss of the (perceived) Bobby Kennedy Camelot, Part II. They hated J. Edgar Hoover and assumed that he and Nixon had made a devil’s pact to eliminate Martin Luther King. They hated the war in Vietnam (while never assigning John Kennedy’s role in getting us into it up to our chins) and hated Nixon’s determination to win it even more.
That year changed American journalism from reporting “who, what, where, why, when and how” to thinly veiled editorial, biased reporting. The news people foisted their opinions of good and bad on the public. Anyone can review the media tone of the 60’s and see that this is so.
The snowball that began rolling way back then has picked up speed and grown in incredible size ever since. Chris Matthews, a hack with brains, would have been selling popcorn and looking into the newsroom from the outside, forty years ago.
But, “all things come to those who wait.” The common man’s wimpy position of writing letters to the esteemed editor has been replaced by genuine smart guys who catch the news media in their “reindeer games” and blog about it.
All of a sudden, this new force from out of the blogoshere is “glib, even naive.” Well, Mr. Smart Newsguy, you can think that at your own peril.
We all really want a viable press: both local and national. We depend on it. Without it, we do not have the organized collection of data necessary to feed the blogs.
Furthermore, most of us love the “in-depth” reporting that lays out the “who, what, where, why, when and how” that only dogged reporters on the scene can present. But somehow these guys have to be paid and the internet is not the source.
So, the news media will have to reform. When they do, their papers and magazine will sell more copies and the advertising rates will stabilize and then rise.
The MSM (main stream media) has had a free ride for a long time. Now they are going to have to go back to work to earn not only respect, but a living.
CBS is about to pay Katie Couric some huge bucks to lip-sync the news. Who gives a flying rat’s patoot? That formula is strictly museum stuff.
The mainstream media will have to discover the mysteries of the blogosphere: quality, integrity and consistency. That goes for all levels of news: International, national and local.
So long as the MSM remains primarily agenda driven, the blogs will be ever vigilant and ready to tie their shoelaces together. That is neither “glib”, nor “naive.”
What is “glib” and “naive” is the thought that bluster and being the “man behind the curtain” can scare poor Toto away.
We’ve become so jaded. We’ve seen it all. Once you’ve seen two airplanes fly into buildings, people jump out of those buildings, and then the buildings become obliterated……. everything else becomes pablum. No more “breaking stories” after that.
1977, KABC Eyewitness News: The local news was essentially something called “happy talk”. Nothing negative, and it didn’t hurt that the male anchors were old-time glamorous, and Tawny Little, the female anchor was a former Miss America.
“Happy Talk” was wonderful because when something negative did come along, it was all that more powerful….(Jim Jones and the Kool-Aid stuff)….we weren’t so desensitized.
Jim Jones and Kool-Aid is nothing now. Nothing shocks anymore. Yawn.
P.S. Does anyone still drink Kool-Aid? I actually had a refreshing glass of Hi-C the other day! Strange.
And I’m too busy to blog. On this blog, that is. Well, I guess I’m not that busy because I’m blogging?
Fine news!!!
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