State of the (US) news media
The US Project for Excellence in Journalism has just published its annual . Always worth a read - trends identified there tend to play back across the rest of the world as well. Headlines this year:
鈥 News organizations need to do more to think through the implications of this new era of shrinking ambitions.
鈥 The evidence is mounting that the news industry must become more aggressive about developing a new economic model.
鈥 The key question is whether the investment community sees the news business as a declining industry or an emerging one in transition.
鈥 There are growing questions about whether the dominant ownership model of the last generation, the public corporation, is suited to the transition newsrooms must now make.
鈥 The Argument Culture is giving way to something new, the Answer Culture.
鈥 Blogging is on the brink of a new phase that will probably include scandal, profitability for some, and a splintering into elites and non-elites over standards and ethics.
鈥 While journalists are becoming more serious about the web, no clear models of how to do journalism online really exist yet, and some qualities are still only marginally explored.
The detail is worth reading....
Comments
We're in an "era of shrinking ambitions"?
I'm not sure I'm on board with that particular assumption.
I have not read the report but the summary you have given is thought-provoking enough. I hope the media (and I am proud to be there) has a great future. It all really depends on strategising and creating a new identity in this day and age.
While the report gets to grips with the economics of media, I'm fascinated by the moral lacuna at its heart: no discussion of the broader ethical role of the Fourth Estate in democracy, or the parlous state of investigative journalism or the way media workers have morphed into stenographers. Am I the only one who feels that the disparate, narrowly framed news bytes that pass for 'media' hasten the trend towards a world turned into a counting house atop a rubbish dump? I tend to agree with the blogger at abusedbythenews.com who laments that 'while the bloggers bleat over partisan conspiracies in the media, it's the mad quest for profit that really skews our news.'
The 大象传媒 is superior to the US Media. In another subject, I dedicated an article in my blog to the 大象传媒 Reporter missing in the Middle East.
Please feel free to use my article about the 大象传媒 Reporter for your news. I wrote it from the heart.
"The Argument Culture is giving way to something new, the Answer Culture."
The detail may well be worth reading but the headlines would appear to be management speak rubbish.
I'll skip the bigger picture and just run on your bullets, tabloid-wise (oxymoron?):
"this new era of shrinking ambitions" ...Eh? The whole world - at it's various levels of the game - is populated by wannabes! - awakened by global medias First World 'ideals'. :-/
"the news industry must become more aggressive..." .....Que! Why does the news - or disbursment of new information - have to have any property of 'aggression'? Surely that just colours the factual content? (rhetorical?)
How the investment community views the news business should be irrelevant! More biased axes to grind away at autonomy and the truth. The underlying question is, 'should news be a 'business' or a 'public service'?
So newsrooms have to make a transition? Does that mean that 大象传媒 24-hour coverage will be even more on-the-fly, with on-site bluster and misinformation as events unfold? Things can only get worse if the megalith and consequent feet-of-clay are replaced with a million different motives for showing everything that goes on in the World - with salacious abandon!
At which point I'll stop for lunch!.....
you should be more interested in what ever happened to the bbc as the fourth estate.
i dont expect us news corporations to tell me anything close to the truth about anything.
But i used to expect the bbc to tell me the truth.
Sadly you are just pravda UK these days.
So we have a democracy without a fourth estate
Great cheers, thanks bbc
I agree with Gregor Aitken that you cannot expect to hear the truth from the US news media; but I think still 大象传媒 is the best among free media. I wish they (大象传媒) just didn't try to imitate the US style reporting, and remain a trend-setter rather than followers of a bad style.
大象传媒 naturally is focused on the UK, so sometimes when you (who live outside the UK) are listening/ watching their flagship news programs like R4 Today or Newsnight you are overwhelmed by so many local details.
Let's see where will projects like RealNews (www.realnews.org) lead to?
I prefer the 大象传媒 to most US media outlets. Most US for-profit media outlets have gone soft. Not to long ago I watched a half hour of local news in which the lead story was about the late Anna Nicole Smith and in which I heard nothing said about the ongoing US (and UK) military action in Iraq!
Long live NPR and the Beeb!
State of the US news Media ? As always--Blinkered and cowed. Sound familiar ?
Media? News? Are you sure your talking about the same US TV infomercials that i see.(fox news. cnn etc). I dont actaully see tghem as a news service more overlong infomercials for products ( i saw a 45 minute program on fox once extolling the virtues of the new oil of ulay product, this was after a scant 30 seconds lip service had been pad to the news of more dead troops in Iraq. If they can call this a news service then the goals they outline might be relevent to them, but none of them would be relvent to an actual NEWS service. A business yes, but not a news service.
State of the US media? These Americans say it best:
* the late Katherine Graham, Washington Post publisher, in a speech given at CIA headquarters in 1988 - 'We live in a dirty and dangerous world. There are some things the general public does not need to know and shouldn't. I believe democracy flourishes when the government can take legitimate steps to keep its secrets and when the press can decide whether to print what it knows.'
* William Colby, former director, CIA: 'The CIA owns everyone of any significance in the major media.'
* Michael Parenti - 'The enormous gap between what US leaders do in the world and what Americans think their leaders are doing is one of the great propaganda accomplishments of the dominant political mythology.'
* Robert McChesney, media reformist, August 2005 - 'People understand their media system isn't natural. It's not a free market system. It's a result of policies oftentimes made corruptly behind closed doors in Washington. And, once people recognise that ... they don't have to accept this commercial carpet bombing...'
'New era of shrinking ambitions'? I'd say vast numbers of people have burgeoning ambitions... the people of developing nations are robustly ambitious about trading fairly across the equator and getting a slice of the pie, for example. I'd say a report like this reveals a naive belief that the US media still somehow 'controls the message'. I suggest they lost control around about the time Judith Miller used The New York Times to bullhorn a mendacious war. Growing numbers of intelligent people are becoming ambitious about the free flow of disinterested information. US news media (and the 大象传媒, it's becoming clear) are falling further and further behind the loop with each passing day.
The US report said there was 鈥渢he continuing sense that journalism matters, and continuing doubts about whether it is being practiced in a way people want鈥. It also said the authors wondered whether 鈥渃onsumers鈥 would care about the values of the old press 鈥 the likes of CBS and the New York Times.
I think people certainly care about the values of the old press and appreciate news that is presented in the spirit of engaging them and their community with the public affairs. That鈥檚 not to say that everyone is the same鈥攑eople have diverse needs and require differing levels for engagement with public affairs. Ideally online news sites should provide a space that accommodates the many different levels so that everyone is included.
It used to be (long ago) that advertisers and audiences were drawn to news publications for their good journalism. Audiences enjoyed (and still enjoy) good journalism. In the current climate, to use the phraseology of the US report, the 鈥渁nswer culture鈥 has taken persuasion and sales speak to a new level and people aren鈥檛, for the most part, enjoying that 鈥 I think they are living with it, but not enjoying it.
I asked a doctor once how people could be very sick for so long without knowing it鈥攈ow their symptoms of illness could go unnoticed. He said: 鈥測ou鈥檇 be surprised at how well people learn to adapt to and live with their symptoms鈥攖o the extent that they actually believe things are normal.鈥 I think we can apply that to journalism. A lot of the stuff that gets passed off as journalism isn鈥檛 actually journalism. So where the US report wonders whether or not 鈥渃onsumers鈥 care about the values of the old press鈥攏o they don鈥檛鈥 but citizens do and that鈥檚 the difference.
Dottie Magill (1) put it perfectly.
The take-up of news requires the ability in the viewer to disseminate information that they can assimilate and form impressions of that news that they will know more of what is going on in the World. Some people will not see the bigger picture, no matter how much they are spoon-fed interpretations of the 'facts'! If the on-the-spot precis of the story is dummed-down to accommodate 99% of the audience, then it's going to be pretty close-ended and neat-and-tidy for the benefit of that targeted majority. It will, however, turn-off the thinkers - who will recognise it as tabloidising of the facts for fast-media ingestion!
News should not be easy to consume: It should stick in the throat if not chewed properly.......
....Ah yes, it's lunchtime again, isn't it!
Is the us mass media in danger of becoming a vast wasteland? Is the us mass media blending with entertainment; with the intention of maximizing viewers and profits by being overly negative and hyperbole? The WWW provides greater depth and range, and is much more suitable mass media vehicle for news analysis, insight, and human interest grass roots approach without sensationalism.
How come there is no mention of the governments control of mainstream media.
The muffling of important issues like;
* Gold price surpression, phony inflation figures, understated unemployment
* 911
* Peak oil
* The phony war on terrorism which actually is a resource war. (peak oil again.)
Second attempt (after 2 days wait!):-
Dottie Magill (1) put it perfectly.
The take-up of news requires the ability in the viewer to disseminate information that they can assimilate and form impressions of that news that they will know more of what is going on in the World. Some people will not see the bigger picture, no matter how much they are spoon-fed interpretations of the 'facts'! If the on-the-spot precis of the story is dummed-down to accommodate 99% of the audience, then it's going to be pretty close-ended and neat-and-tidy for the benefit of that targeted majority. It will, however, turn-off the thinkers - who will recognise it as tabloidising of the facts for fast-media ingestion!
News should not be easy to consume: It should stick in the throat if not chewed properly.......
....Ah yes, it's lunchtime again, isn't it!
Their coverage of says it all as far as many people here in Australia are concerned.
Further, news aggressively targeted at the lowest common denominator will always fail to actually inform.
So, in other words, blogging will become just like any other form of information. Thank you for the heads up.
I am more concerned about the state of British Media, Especially the 大象传媒.
You have failed to to listen to your viewing and paying public and no longer appear impartial on the news coverage you give. It is now very apparent that you are either scared of our goverment or have become part of it. State television!
In a world that is quickly changing to be more draconian and less media friendly, it seems that some at the 大象传媒 have already decided to give up and emulate FOX NEWS.
No wonder so many are abandoning the mainstream media for the alternative media on the web!
I hope for change!
Theres a lot worse media around the world. Anti Americanism maybe, not in my name.
PeeVeeAh's blog is pure buffoonery.
Who in their right mind would want to ' skip the big picture '