Bob_Grip's Blog

Newspapers across the country are hurting and the Internet is to blame.  That's the bottom line of a study conducted by the Project for Excellence in Journalism.  Read it and see for yourself....The bold type is mine....
 
     NEW YORK (AP) - The many and deepening cuts at newspapers across
the country are starting to take a toll on their content, according
to a study being released Monday.
      The challenge newspapers must meet immediately is to find more
revenue on the Internet, according to the Project for Excellence in
Journalism's study, called "The Changing Newsroom: What is Being
Gained and What is Being Lost in America's Daily Newspapers."
      Newspaper managers need to "find a way to monetize the rapid
growth of Web readership before newsroom staff cuts so weaken
newspapers that their competitive advantage disappears."
      Stories are shorter overall, the study found, and staff coverage
tends to focus on local and community news.
      "America's newspapers are narrowing their reach and their
ambitions and becoming niche reads," the study said.
      Even when foreign and national news makes it into the papers, it
is being relegated to less prominent pages.
      "To make the front page, it has to be a significant development
or a story that we can see through Florida eyes," said Sharon
Rosenhause, managing editor of the Fort Lauderdale-based South
Florida Sun-Sentinel and a longtime newspaper executive.
      The reasons for the newsroom cutbacks are well known: Newsprint
costs have jumped, and advertising and circulation revenue have
quickened their descent this year as advertisers follow readers
online. Newspaper Web sites capture only a small fraction of the
revenue lost as they sell fewer print ads, which fetch more money.
      "The seams and threads are beginning to show in U.S. journalism
even though newspapers are by far the greatest source of news,"
Lou Ureneck, chairman of the journalism department at Boston
University, said Friday.
      The PEJ study surveyed senior newsroom executives at more than
250 newspapers and interviewed editors at papers in 15 cities to
document the way these cuts have affected newsrooms and the quality
of their product.
      The results show that papers carry fewer stories on foreign and
national news and devote less space to business, science and arts
reporting, and many have reduced the crossword puzzle and
eliminated television and stock listings.
      Many editors said they must ask reporters to cover more beats,
reducing their ability to produce authoritative stories. Others
said, in what may create a vicious circle, that staff cutbacks
reduce their ability to shape coverage to fit their communities'
needs, and Ureneck said that coverage is shrinking.
      "This is a strategic move not driven by lack of demand but (by)
a revenue model that is broken," Ureneck said.
      Still, 56 percent of the editors surveyed said their news
product is better than it was three years ago because coverage is
more targeted.
      "There's an improvement in enterprise, in investigations and in
the coverage of several core beats," the study quoted an unnamed
editor of a large metropolitan daily talking about his staff's
coverage, not the makeup of the paper overall.
      Local news is "very essential" to their product, according to
97 percent of editors surveyed, and they said that's where they're
putting a larger share of their shrinking resources.
      "They are giving a greater piece of a smaller pie to local
news," Ureneck said. That makes sense because where they can
"develop the most expertise and strongest bond with readers is
covering the local community."
      The newsroom is much younger than three years ago, and reporters
are more technology savvy and able to meet the demands of print and
online stories, according to the study.
      Editors once leery of producing content for the Web are
increasingly embracing its potential to diversify readership and
improve journalism, even if it sometimes saps print resources.
      "Editors feel torn between the advantages the Web offers and
the energy it consumes to produce material often of limited or even
questionable value," the study said.
      The Web speeds delivery of news, allows interaction with readers
and opens nearly infinite space for news.
      "The downside is that is has eroded the advertising base in
print publications, and that is by far the main source of revenue
to pay for large news staffs," Ureneck said.
      Editors see the ability to track readership of any specific
story online as an advantage for improving content. It provides an
"indisputable link between strong editorial content and the kind
of higher readership that attracts advertisers," the study said.
      The editors, 97 percent of whom said they are active in trying
to develop new revenue streams, can then convince the advertising
sales staff to become more targeted in selling to the Web.
      Many said, though, that they were uncertain improved editorial
content would ensure a bright future - especially since most
organizations failed to anticipate the changes that have wracked
newsrooms in recent years.
      Only 5 percent of the editors surveyed said they were confident
they could predict what the newsroom would look like in five years.
      "I feel I'm being catapulted into another world, a world I
don't really understand," Virginian-Pilot editor Denis Finley told
PEJ. "Things are happening at the speed of light."
      The results of the survey, conducted online by Princeton Survey
Research Associates International between Jan. 29 and Feb. 29,
include responses from over 50 percent of U.S. papers with 100,000
or more in circulation and more than 30 percent of papers with
50,000 to 100,000 in circulation.