Read About the state of our media! Pew’s 2010 Report

Old media are trying to imagine the new smaller newsroom of the future in the relic of their old ones. New media are imagining the new newsroom from a blank slate.   Among the critical questions all this will pose: Is there some collaborative model that would allow citizens and journalists to have the best of both worlds and add more capacity here? What ethical values about news will settle in at these sites? Will legacy and new media continue to cooperate more, sharing stories and pooling resources, and if they do, how can one operation vouch for the fairness and accuracy of something they did not produce?

The year ahead will not settle any of these. But the urgency of these questions will become more pronounced. And ultimately the players may be quite different.

“I think the answer may come from places staffed by young people who understand the new technology and its potential and who have a passion for journalism,” said Larry Jinks, the highly regarded former editor and publisher who transformed the San Jose Mercury News a generation ago and who still sits on the board of the McClatchy Company.



The full report and trends by media channel are located directly http://www.stateofthemedia.org/2010 

If you have time, might I also suggest browsing through:

1.       Key Findings

2.       Major Trends  

3.       Nielsen’s Media Analysis: www.stateofthemedia.org/2010/specialreports_nielsen.php

4.       List of who owns the top media companies

A few top level snippets of summaries are noted below:

1.       Cable: For the third consecutive year, only digital and cable news saw audiences grow among the key sectors that deliver news. In cable in 2009, those gains were largely captured by one network, Fox, though during the day, a breaking-news time, CNN also gained viewers.

2.       What’s more, the data continue to suggest a clear pattern in how Americans gravitate for news: people are increasingly “on demand” consumers, seeking platforms where they can get the news they want when they want it from a variety of sources rather than have to come at appointed times and to one news organization. Online, Yahoo News is on top with MSNBC and CNN next, AOL and then NY Times.

3.       Newspapers saw print circulation losses accelerate in 2009. In the latest period, September, industry-wide circulation fell 10.6% from a year earlier. That comes on top of losses of 4.6% in 2008. The industry has lost 25.6% in daily circulation since 2000. Those declines, however, pale by comparison to the loss in revenues, which represent a more significant problem.

4.       Audio audiences are more stable. Fully 236 million Americans listened to at least some radio in an average week in the fall of 2009, a number that has been basically static for the past five years, and news/talk/information remains among the most popular formats. NPR’s audience in 2009 rose slightly, up 0.1%, from 2008. But new technology is encroaching on the amount of traditional radio use. More than 4 –in 10 Americans now say they listen to less terrestrial radio due to iPod/MP3 use, and nearly 1in 3 now say they listen to online radio.

What are your thoughts on the media industry? How have the changes and economy impacted your media relations, journalism career? How have you adapted with the changes?