For the Mainstream Media, the news is not good. A new Pew Research Center study is out today as part of its ongoing Project for Excellence in Journalism. Here’s the headline:
NEWS EXECUTIVES, SKEPTICAL OF GOVERNMENT SUBSIDIES, SEE OPPORTUNITY IN TECHNOLOGY BUT ARE UNSURE ABOUT REVENUE AND THE FUTURE
Just about nothing is going right. Things are so bad, in fact, that after years of denial, editors are now wondering openly whether their publications are going to survive, especially in an age of widespread cutbacks and trying to do more with less. Ad revenues are down, circulation is off, newspapers are filing for bankruptcy and, for some cable networks, ratings are plummeting. The good news is that the execs are “openly skeptical” about the prospect of government support; the bad news is that they basically have no idea what to do. From the Pew study:
America’s news executives are hesitant about many of the alternative funding ideas being discussed for journalism today and are overwhelmingly skeptical about the prospect of government financing, according to a new survey by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism in association with the American Society of News Editors (ASNE) and the Radio Television Digital News Association (RTDNA).
Many news executives also sense change for the better in their newsrooms today, despite cutbacks and declining revenue. Editors at newspaper-related companies praise the cultural shifts in their organizations, the younger tech-savvy staff, and a growing sense of experimentation. Many broadcast executives see so-called one-person crews–in which the same individual reports, produces and shoots video–as improving their journalism by getting more people on the street.
But the leaders of America’s newsrooms are nonetheless worried about the future. Fewer than half of all those surveyed are confident their operations will survive another 10 years–not without significant new sources of revenue. Nearly a third believe their operations are at risk in just five years or less. And many blame the problems not on the inevitable effect of technology but on their industry’s missed opportunities.
Among the study’s findings:
Many of the new revenue options being debated today receive only limited or divided support from news executives. When it comes to the often-discussed option of pay walls for online content, for instance, only 10% say they are working on them, though that could change…
There is significant resistance, however, to other discussed revenue streams, particularly from the government or from groups that engage in advocacy. Fully 75% of news executives have serious reservations about receiving government subsidies, and 78% have significant resistance to financing from interest groups. Roughly half have significant worries about funds from government tax credits and more than a third have significant doubts about private donations.
Broadcast news executives are noticeably more pessimistic about journalism’s future than editors at newspaper-based operations. Broadcasters think their profession is headed in the wrong direction by a margin of nearly two-to-one (64% versus 35%). By contrast, editors working at newspapers were split (49% wrong direction versus 51% right direction).
And most news executives think the Internet is changing the fundamental values of journalism. Six out of ten feel this way–though executives from broadcast operations (62%) do so more than executives from newspapers (53%). And their biggest concern is loosening standards of accuracy and verification, much of it tied to the immediacy of the Web.
Overall, most news executives are worried about journalism’s future. Nearly six in ten, 58%, believe the profession is headed in the “wrong direction,” while 41% see things moving in the “right” one.
Where to start?
Instead of looking into the future, maybe those news executives surveyed need to start by taking a good hard look at the past, which has delivered them to this sorry present. Since the time I was a young reporter on the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, nearly 30 years ago, an inordinate amount of editorial attention has gone into non-productive, non-newsgathering activity, including an endless amount of worrying about the “future” of journalism, instead of its actual practice. Now we have seen the future, and it doesn’t work.
In an age of instantaneous electronic transmission of digital information, other industries are facing many of the same problems, including the music business, Hollywood, and book publishing; to a greater or lesser extent, they’re all floundering, if not actually foundering. But the news business has been especially hard hit, and not because the public suddenly lost its appetite for its product. It’s because — through a combination of moral weakness, ideological aggression, a lack of intellectual diversity and a dinosaur-like unwillingness to adapt to technological change and challenges, the MSM has gone completely off the rails.
Over the course of the next few weeks, we’re going to be laying out the causes for the MSM’s demise and suggest what, if anything, it can do to save itself before it is entirely replaced by the internet and the citizen-journalist. In the meantime, please read the Pew study, then come back here with your thoughts.
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