March 20th, 2006

Message From Michael (image placeholder)
March 20, 2006

• THE STATE OF THE NEWS MEDIA – 2006


• HARRIS INTERACTIVE -- NEWS USE AMONG YOUNG


• IBM -- THE END OF TV AS WE KNOW IT


• NIELSEN – GETTING MORE, WATCHING LESS

More is less. That’s the basic theme of a series of reports have come out over the last week, examining Americans use of news media. More media; less coverage. The largest (that’s why it’s in bigger font in the headline) was the Project for Excellence in Journalism’s annual report on the state of the news media. But three other reports also came out that offer some interesting insights. Frankly there is just too much to cover in a brief MfM. So, we will hit the highlights and maybe re-visit this in a later report.
Major Trends

• The new paradox of Journalism is more outlets covering fewer stories. There are more outlets for news, but that means the audience for each is smaller and along with it, the number of journalists. The report notes that when there is a major story, the reporters are ‘herded’ into press areas away from the news. The result is the newsmakers control the news. The report authors argue that one of the reasons coverage of Katrina was exceptional was that officials weren’t able to do that.


• The species of newspaper that is most threatened is the big-city metro paper. The report says they were the ones to suffer the greatest circulation and revenue loss. National newspapers did not and small newspapers had only modest losses. The big-city metro is being replaced in part by niche publications serving smaller communities and targeted audiences. Yet it is those papers, the report argues, that have the resources to act as watchdogs over government, identify trends and “define the larger community public square.”


• At many old-media companies, though not all, the decades-long battle at the top between idealists and the accountants is now over. The idealists have lost. And mainly because of the financial struggles the news media faced and are facing, the report argues. It quotes a corporate spokesman for Knight-Ridder who says, “I wish there were an identifiable and strong correlation between quality journalism and newspaper sales. It isn’t… that simple.”


• Traditional media do appear to be moving toward technological innovation – finally. The report notes that its earlier studies indicated more creative innovation came from non-news sources while traditional media treated the Internet as a platform to repurpose old material. The report says it saw signs that attitude is changing, but there is still a question whether the traditional media will make the cultural change necessary and whether younger audiences care about the traditional news brands.


• How long will it take online journalism to become a major economic engine and will it ever be as big as print and television. The report notes that even if online revenues grew at an improbable 33% a year while print revenue grew at 3% a year, it would be 2017 before they match. Most likely, the authors say, producers of old media will challenge the new media to compensate them for content.

Content Analysis

This year the study focused on a single day, May 11, 2005, to see, as the authors put it, how 19th century print outlets, 20th century radio and TV outlets and 21st century Web sites and blogs “distill and order events into an account of the day” in three cities across the U.S. Again, some highlights, followed by specifics.

• What people learn depends heavily on where they go for news. The report says that while the medium may not be the message, there is no doubt the medium influences the message. Different medium; different stories covered. So much so that the authors say consumers must choose carefully to get a good media diet and that “the notion of relying on a single or primary source of news – one-stop shopping – may no longer make sense.”


• Even when audiences did hear the same story on different outlets, the number of sources was ‘surprisingly small.” For example, the report said that every cable and network morning news program covering a security scare involving President Bush used the same security expert. The same thing happened on national broadcasts when the local prosecutor in an Illinois murder case appeared on all the newscasts.


• The incremental and ephemeral nature of what the media defines as news is striking. Few of the top stories covered on that day would get much coverage even a day or two later, or would be remembered a month later. Instead of context, the media, especially cable, focused on the immediate, or as the report put it, “news that breaks rather than news that bends.”


• While the news is on, there is not a constant flow of news events. The report says the most striking thing they noted during the day was the amount of repetition. For example, Google offered 14,000 stories on its front page that day, but in reality there were only 24 news events involved, while on cable only half of the news stories monitored over the 12 hour period were new.

The Specifics

• Online: The authors make the point that the Internet is technology. It does not represent a style of media, a set of values or a journalistic approach. The Internet has added more outlets from which to choose, but it has not added new topics to the agenda.


• Blogs: The report says the blogs actually acted as ‘navigators’ to the media culture, sifting through the mainstream media to come up with things important, curious, absent, interesting or objectionable. The blogs were less interested in breaking news and more interested in long-term issues, but the bloggers didn’t do anything one would call journalism or sourcing.


• Cable News: The report says the most striking feature of cable news is its fixation on whatever is happening at the moment. The result is a good deal of repetition and a good deal that is ephemeral. But the report noted the cable channels have become distinct from each other with FOX trying to help viewers put the news in order, albeit a conservative order while CNN is more earnest, tied to the immediate but less sure what the difference is between its different programs and MSNBC seemed to be a different channel virtually from program to program.


• Network: The report says that the contrast between the nightly news on the network and the morning news on the network is so striking that “the term network TV news seems almost a misnomer.” The authors say their one-day analysis showed the three evening newscasts were virtually identical to each other and very different from their network siblings in the morning. The morning news agenda is more focused on lighter stories and emotion.


• Local TV: The report says the focus was on what news managers thought people could use -- traffic, weather, and what news managers thought they were worried about -- accidents and crime. In style and format, the authors say, the newscasts were ‘strikingly’ (a word the authors seem to like a lot) similar, even across cities. The stories were just the facts, little opinion, but also the ‘shallowest’ sourcing and fewest angles.


• Newspapers: This is the medium that is covering the most topics, has the deepest sourcing, explores the most angles and provides most of the content to the Internet, according to the report, although it tilted toward elites. In part, the authors say it is because of the “number of boots on the ground.” The question is whether in the shift toward online, the newspapers will lose that advantage of more time to spend on a story and, with lower online revenue, more money to spend on a story.


• Radio: The report says that contrary to some expectations, the news wasn’t all national syndicated material but in fact was very local, if somewhat limited in scope. Of course it was brief, except for the talk shows which provide some depth of coverage. Again, like TV, the report says the eight stations monitored in three cities are ‘strikingly’ (there’s that word again) alike.

Other Studies

• Harris Interactive: On a related note, a Harris Poll found that while there may be more outlets, most people choose to get their news most frequently from broadcast mediums. Three-quarters (77%) say they watch local broadcast news several times a week or daily while 71% say they watch network news or cable news that often. On the other hand, only one in five (19%) of U.S. adults say they listen to satellite news programming or read a newspaper (18%) several times a week or daily. The Poll divided the survey group into matures (59 and older), baby boomers (40 to 58), Generation Xers (28 to 39) and ‘Echo Boomers” (18 to 27). Not surprisingly matures rely primarily on traditional media while baby boomers use the most varied types of media. Boomers and Gen Xers are more likely to go online for news while, surprisingly, Echo Boomers are the least likely to go online for news although they also are the least frequent users of media.


• Nielsen: Americans are getting more TV channels than ever before, but they’re watching a smaller percentage of them, especially those from broadcasters. In a report released in Orlando, the company says the number of TV channels received jumped 50% in the last five years, from 61.4 in 2000 to 96.4 in 2005. In comparison, in 2004, there were 92.6 channels received but only 15.0 tuned in. In 2005, the number of channels received increased to 96.4, but the number ‘tuned in’ only increased to 15.4. In the same period, Nielsen says the average household tuned to TV 56 hours and 7 minutes a week in 2004 but 57 hours and 17 minutes in 2005. By way of comparison, in 1975 the average was 43 hours and 42 minutes a week.


• IBM: Citing the well-known fragmentation and myriad media choices, the report goes several steps further saying we are seeing “the end of TV as we know it” as viewers go from not just niche viewing but to individualized viewing. The report talks about “consumer bimodality,” meaning there are two types of viewers. The largest group is the massive passives who watch what they are given. But the other group represents a ‘generation chasm’ of what IBM classifies as “kool kids” and “gadgetiers.” These are the leading edge users who are demanding the medium be more interactive.

Finally

Aren’t you glad to see that word. A long report. But a lot of information. The State of the News Media report alone is actually more than 178,000 words. So, cutting it down to 15oo words isn’t bad. You can access the full report at stateofthemedia.org. And, as I said at the start, we may look at this again in future editions of MfM. And, as always, any feedback or comments are welcome.

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