State of the News Media 2014

PewResearch Journalism Project State of the News Media 2014

http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/top-stories/244458/pew-finds-embattled-newspaper-industry-still-pulls-in-more-than-half-of-all-news-revenue/

http://gigaom.com/2014/03/25/state-of-the-media-not-out-of-the-woods-by-any-means-but-some-reasons-for-cautious-optimism/

http://www.journalism.org/2014/03/26/state-of-the-news-media-2014-overview/

In its annual review of the media industry in the United States — which it published online early Wednesday morning — the Pew Research Center says the news business looks somewhat healthier than it has in past years, thanks in part to an influx of new investors and new jobs being offered by rapidly-growing digital-native entities like Vox and First Look Media. However, the report notes that traditional players still make up the bulk of the industry and that as a whole the industry continues to shrink rapidly, both in jobs and revenue.

In the preamble to the report, which runs to more than 150 pages, the Pew Center says that 2013 and early 2014 brought “a level of energy to the news industry not seen for a long time.” The authors added that some of the new players who have emerged and/or broadened their ambitions — such as BuzzFeed, which now has a news staff of 170, or First Look with its $250-million budget from eBay founder Pierre Omidyar — have “created a new sense of optimism, or perhaps hope, for the future of American journalism.”

In the first-ever accounting of jobs created by new digital companies — a number based on surveys and public information — Pew said that about 5,000 full-time jobs had been created at nearly 500 digital news outlets. However, it also added that the “vast majority of bodies producing original reporting still lie within the newspaper industry,” and full-time employment in the industry fell by another 6.4 percent in 2012, with more losses expected in 2013.

And what of paywalls? The Pew Center says that what it calls “audience-driven revenue” or subscriptions accounts for about 25 percent of the total financial support system for journalism, a number that has grown both in total dollars and as a percentage of the whole as more and more newspapers and other media outlets have set up paywalls and metered plans. But the report suggests this is not likely to save the industry from more pain.

As for advertising, which still generates more than two-thirds of the money that supports the news business (although its contribution has fallen by 50 percent in the past decade), the Pew report said the industry is “in a state of churn.” Print advertising continues to decline sharply, TV advertising remains stable but likely won’t continue as viewers migrate to the web, and digital ads aren’t growing fast enough to fill the gap. New forms of advertising are gaining momentum, the report says, but “seem to favor a scale achievable only by few.”

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