The State of the News Media 2004

[CShine]

A growing number of news outlets are chasing relatively static or even shrinking audiences for news. One result of this is that most sectors of the news media are losing audience. That audience decline, in turn, is putting pressures on revenues and profits, which leads to a cascade of other implications. The only sectors seeing general audience growth today are online, ethnic and alternative media.

Much of the new investment in journalism today - much of the information revolution generally - is in disseminating the news, not in collecting it. Most sectors of the media are cutting back in the newsroom, both in terms of staff and in the time they have to gather and report the news. While there are exceptions, in general journalists face real pressures trying to maintain quality.

In many parts of the news media, we are increasingly getting the raw elements of news as the end product. This is particularly true in the newer, 24-hour media. In cable and online, there is a tendency toward a jumbled, chaotic, partial quality in some reports, without much synthesis or even the ordering of the information. There is also a great deal of effort, particularly on cable news, that is put into delivering essentially the same news repetitively without any meaningful updating.

Journalistic standards now vary even inside a single news organization. Companies are trying to reassemble and deliver to advertisers a mass audience for news not in one place, but across different programs, products and platforms. To do so, some are varying their news agenda, their rules on separating advertising from news and even their ethical standards. What will air on an MSNBC talk show on cable might not meet the standards of NBC News on broadcast, and the way that advertising intermingles with news stories on many newspaper Web sites would never be allowed in print. Even the way a television network treats news on a prime time magazine versus a morning show or evening newscast can vary widely. This makes projecting a consistent sense of identity and brand more difficult. It also may reinforce the public perception evident in various polls that the news media lack professionalism and are motivated by financial and self-aggrandizing motives rather than the public interest.



http://www.stateofthenewsmedia.org/narrative_overview_eight.asp?media=1

[Warpy]

1. Did anybody happen to catch Today on NBC this morning?

They did a lengthy interview with Bay Buchanan, speculating who would be Kerry's VP choice. Bay Buchanan! I mean, couldn't they at least find a Democrat to ask?

This brings out something I've said for years. The right has well-endowed stink tanks that shop their "experts" around to all the news shows, make them very available for any and all broadcasts. The left, and even the moderates, seem to expect the news media to come to them.

This aint gonna happen, folks. The news media have gotten lazy beyond belief, far too lazy to check facts or to search for genuine experts on any subject.

We need an organization willing to shop our viewpoints around.

[Elidor]

2. What news media?

"If they maintain profits by cutting costs, social science research on media suggests they will accelerate their audience loss."

That funny sound is U.S. news media swirling down the toilet. A fitting end to the travesty that passes for reporting in this country. Fuck the media whores.

[AndyTiedye]

3. They Aren't Going for Ratings, They Want to Tell us What to Think

Telling people what to think isn't the best thing for ratings,
because you will lose some viewers when you do it.

The news organizations aren't going for ratings. If they were, they
would have turned on Bush* earlier. They would have given up on their
all-Monica-all-the-time coverage in the 90s rather than keeping it up
long after the viewers had lost interest.

When they continue to push something that nobody wants to see, it is
obvious that their motivations are more related to power and control,
instead of simple audience share.

[depakid]

4. Audience decline = why bother watching

I considered doing a little project in an analytic methods class re: student attitudes toward local media coverage, but after some preliminary efforts, I found that it would be very time consuming to get a good sample. Too few students bothered watching local "news."

And really, why would they? Unless they were obsessed with crime blotters, auto accidents and weather reports.

[DeepModem Mom]

5. kick