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The
fifth edition of the annual report "The State of
the News Media 2008," tracing the revolution of
news by the Project for Excellence in Journalism and
funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts, can't
be completely summarized in a quick newsletter article.
At the same time, it's important to take a look at some
of the main points.
The
recently released study opens by saying "The state
of the American news media in 2008 is more troubled than
a year ago. And the problems, increasingly, appear to be
different than many experts have predicted."
Several trends, says the report, bear
particular notice heading into 2008:
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News is shifting from being a product - newspaper, Web
site or newscast - to becoming a service. There is no
single or finished news product anymore.
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A news
organization and a news Web site are no longer final
destinations. They move toward being gateways to other
places.
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The prospects
for user-created content, once thought possibly central
to the next era of journalism, now appear more limited.
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Increasingly, the newsroom is perceived
as the more innovative and experimental part of the news
industry. Majorities think that journalists writing blogs, the ranking of stories on Web
sites, citizens posting comments, and citizen news sites
are making journalism better.
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The agenda of the
American news media continues to narrow, not broaden.
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Madison Avenue,
rather than pushing change, appears to be having trouble
keeping up with it.
Concluding this brief summary, the report
says that an analysis of more than 70,000 stories from
48 separate news outlets in five media sectors in 2007
offers an empirical look at the content of the American
media. Among the findings overall:
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The agenda of the American news media is quite narrow
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Rather than cover the world, only two countries in
2007 received notable coverage, both closely related to
the war - Iran and Pakistan
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Geopolitical events in
the rest of the world made up less than 6% of coverage
studied that includes Afghanistan, Korea, China, Russia,
Israel and everywhere else combined
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The media and
the public often disagreed about which stories were
important in 2007
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The media also
showed a marked short attention span in 2007
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