“On Madison Avenue, talk has turned to whether the business model that has financed the news for more than a century — product advertising — still fits the way people consume media.” Such is the statement made in the introduction to the recently released report called The State of the News Media 2007, produced by the Project for Excellence in Journalism. It’s the fourth year for the project’s annual report. Thier findings show the news media in a period of transition, to say the least.
“With audiences splintering across ever more platforms, nearly every metric for measuring audience is now under challenge as either flawed or obsolete — from circulation in print, to ratings in TV, to page views and unique visitors online. Every media sector except for two is now losing popularity. Even the number of people who go online for news — or anything else — has stopped growing.”
It’s not that audiences are simply moving to new delivery systems for information. The measurements show a new world emerging that provides the individual “more responsibility and command over how he or she consumes information — and that new role is only beginning to be understood.”
For a debate about what the report means, go to Poynter Online.
