Journalism.org has published the first in what it promises will be an annual study on the state of the news media in the United States.
The study identifies eight trends:
- A growing number of news outlets are chasing relatively static or even shrinking audiences for news.
- Much of the new investment in journalism today – much of the information revolution generally – is in disseminating the news, not in collecting it.
- In many parts of the news media, we are increasingly getting the raw elements of news as the end product.
- Journalistic standards now vary even inside a single news organization.
- Without investing in building new audiences, the long-term outlook for many traditional news outlets seems problematic.
- Convergence seems more inevitable and potentially less threatening to journalists than it may have seemed a few years ago.
- The biggest question may not be technological but economic.
- Those who would manipulate the press and public appear to be gaining leverage over the journalists who cover them.
“Journalism faces more difficult economic circumstances than it once did. Yet the way the news industry responded has helped erode public trust. How long can the profession of journalism endure if people increasingly don’t believe it? To reverse the slide in audience and trust will probably take a major change in press behavior, one that will make the news more relevant and customizable and at the same time suggest to the public, as it did briefly after September 11, that the news industry is more concerned with the public good than Americans suspect.”
Footnote:
Link courtesy of Hans Kullin, who has some interesting analysis from a PR perspective.
Murphy's Law 