Study focuses on future of news, newspapers
It's Thursday morning, and I have a choice: Fill out my NCAA bracket for the office pool or write a column about the future of newspapers. Filling out the bracket would be easier — the predictions much simpler.
But that's not part of my job description, so I'll turn to the latest report from the Project for Excellence in Journalism.
Associated with the Pew Research Center in Washington, D.C., the journalism organization looks at news media trends across numerous platforms, including radio, TV, newspapers and the Internet.
"The state of the American news media in 2008 is more troubled than a year ago.
"And the problems, increasingly, appear to be different than many experts have predicted."
Those are the opening lines of the overview of the study.
In many ways, the study — which examined the public's news habits as well as coverage trends, staffing levels, revenue, ratings and circulation trends and more — provided good news for newspapers.
While paid circulation of newspapers continued to decline in 2007, readership of newspapers remains strong.
Market research conducted for the Journal & Courier last fall mirrored that finding. Our survey showed that readership of our print edition had increased over the past two years. In addition, the national study found traffic at newspapers' Web sites growing at impressive rates, something we also have seen at jconline.com.
Newspapers, compared to other traditional media such as commercial radio and network TV, have done a good job of holding on to their audiences.
They also remain profitable, even though you might not think that from looking at Wall Street's ratings of their performance.
"There is life, earnings and maneuvering room in the industry," the study said of newspapers. "Even weakened, newspapers remain the top source of news for their communities."
But the study's authors followed that with a warning of sorts about newspapers' biggest source of revenue.
Advertising is undergoing dramatic changes, and those changes have as much to do with how people shop and the changing retail landscape as with the wider assortment of media choices that advertisers now have.
Industry analysts have criticized newspapers — and other traditional media — for being slow to adapt to changes in consumers' behavior and advertisers' needs.
But the study's authors point out that many advertisers and advertising agencies also have been too slow in changing their strategies and approaches.
It may seem unseemly for a newsroom editor to be focusing so much attention on advertising and audience. But I hope that as a journalist, I'm a realist.
And the reality is that newspapers are businesses. That was true in the days when Benjamin Franklin owned one, and it's still true today. The manpower, news space and other resources we in the newsroom can put toward serving your news needs depends largely on revenue from advertising, which, in turn, is largely driven by the size of our audiences for our newspaper, Web site and other products.
That's the old business model, anyway. But as the study points out, the new model likely will be different.
The difficulty for newspapers, and the journalism group that produces these reports, is predicting how the new model will work — and for how long.
There's a sense of urgency about the task, and also a sense that we're being challenged as newspapers. We need to do it quickly and we need to do it right — both in business and journalistic terms.
Doll, executive editor, can be reached at (765) 420-5242 or [email protected].
