The State of the Media
This morning first thing, this State of the Media report was posted on a few blogs. I started reading through the sections, which cover newspapers, online, local/cable/network TV, magazines, radio and ethnic/alternative media. It was put together by Columbia’s JSchool (and a few other folks) and funded by Pew. NPR was on it by around 11am, with Talk of the Nation. One caller noted his experience with news, where he goes to blogs first, because he feels they filter traditional news better, and their follows their links to those articles recommended. Audio link here.
Dan Gillmor noted Howard Kurtz’ coverage of the report:
Imagine a business that is steadily losing customers, shrinking its work force, cutting back on services and mistrusted by much of the public.
That is a snapshot of the news business in 2004.
The report is pretty dismal, but it does hold some hope for online media, where 2/3 of the 150 million people in the US go for news. Though you should note that online news sites are heavily dependent on paper papers for content.
If people increasingly substitute the Web for their old media before a robust economic model for the Web evolves, the economic effect could be devastating for journalism. Companies might begin to cut back significantly on their newsgathering abilities, as audiences abandon profitable old platforms in favor of less profitable new ones. The net in this case might weaken, not strengthen, the economic vitality of news organizations and the quality of American journalism.
Robin Sloan at Poytner also blogged it here.
tags:1 Comment so far
Leave a reply
Susan Mernit asked me to post something about the state of media as I see it from my small corner of the living web and this is what I sent her, warts and all:
Wow, that’s a tough one. I don’t know if I’m qualified to say. To me mass media seems so complacent, so sure of their craft/processes and so blind to their blindspots, but what profession isn’t?
When I read the newspaper, especially when powerful assertion is made, I ask myself “who wants me to know this?” (whether it’s true or not), and “who benefits if enough people agree with this or thinks this is true?”
Sometimes I feel like the media is blind to that question and therefore corrupted by access to money and power, leaving the majority of the world out of the official story.
I heard that after Kennedy was shot and journalist’s careers were made overnight (think of how many of the leading news anchors from Lehrer to Wallace were on the scene in Dallas) and others felt they had missed the biggest story of their career, the press/media decided that everything the president does is news.
That’s kind of insane.
I don’t know. Politics and power is what interests me about critiquing the media, but I think my comments are inchoate. If you think there’s something in here worth bringing up and you want to give me a login to the blog, I’ll post something - or submit a comment, or send another trackback ping.