Hey, How's Your News: The State of the News Media

A major study, conducted by the Project for Excellence in Journalism, entitled “The State of the News Media,” takes a multi-faceted look into where the news media stands in early 2005, and where it might be headed.

Five major trends were cited as the takeaways from the world of the media, 2004:

          * There are now several models of journalism, and the trajectory increasingly is toward those that are faster, looser, and cheaper.
          * The rise in partisanship of news consumption and the notion that people have retreated to their ideological corners for news has been widely exaggerated.
          * To adapt, journalism may have to move in the direction of making its work more transparent and more expert, and of widening the scope of its searchlight.
          * Despite the new demands, there is more evidence than ever that the mainstream media are investing only cautiously in building new audiences.
          * The three broadcast network news divisions face their most important moment of transition in decades.

A quick look through the reported trends provides an excellent snapshot of the state of the amorphous and ever-widening concept of media. In essence, the trends make sense in that they reflect everything that I’ve seen and heard over the last year.

The following quote reveals a succinct description of the currently raging blogs vs. journalism debate:

“The traditional press model - the journalism of verification - is one in which journalists are concerned first with trying to substantiate facts. It has ceded ground for years on talk shows and cable to a new journalism of assertion, where information is offered with little time and little attempt to independently verify its veracity.”

And even more crystallized:

“Blogs helped unmask errors at CBS, but also spread the unfounded conspiracy theory that the GOP stole the presidential election in Ohio.”

This points toward the argument that quality content is quality content as quality journalism is quality journalism, no matter where it turns up or whatever form it takes. Of course, the reverse is just as true.

Analysis of news coverage – particularly of the biggest stories of 2004 – again reveals some interesting tid-bits that are certainly food for thought.

“Two stories dominated the year, the war in Iraq and the election, and both were caught in the maelstrom of debate over media bias.”

Interestingly, in the light of accusations of a liberal and biased mainstream media, it was found that coverage of the war in Iraq was fairly even-handed in the face of prolonged combat: 25% negative, 20% positive, 35% neutral.

“Fox was twice as likely to be positive as negative. CNN and MSNBC were more evenly split.”

On the presidential election, however, bias-seekers may have more ground to stand upon.

“Looking across all media, campaign coverage that focused on Bush was three times as negative as coverage of Kerry (36% versus 12%) It was also less likely to be positive (20% positive Bush stories, 30% for Kerry).”

The conclusion to the report points a blunt, accusing finger toward the trend of entertainment news or “infotainment” in many (too many) forms of media:

“As audiences declined, because of technological and cultural changes, news organizations felt pressure on revenues and stock performance. In response, they cut back on their newsrooms, squeezed in more advertising and cut back on the percentage of space devoted to news. They tried to respond to changing tastes, too, by lightening their content. Audiences appeared to gravitate to lighter topics, and those topics were often cheaper to cover. Those changes, in turn, deepened the sense that the news media were motivated by economics and less focused on professionalism and the public interest.”

The final note of the report is quite bleak:

“The challenge for traditional journalism is whether it can reassert its position as the provider of something distinctive and valuable - both for citizens and advertisers…. Somehow journalism needs to prove that it is acting on behalf of the public, if it is to save itself.”

Will electronic media and blogs continue their rush into the spotlight? Is the traditional media doomed?

Yes and hardly. Reports of the death of traditional media are highly exaggerated. Electronic media will continue to increase its role (including blogs), but will have to show a degree of credibility in order to be taken seriously by a wary public.

Quality will prove out over time. Let’s remember that the Internet is still but a pup.