Sunday, May 08, 2005
Whither Big Media ?
It's becoming increasing clear that some major changes are taking place in the way we get news and how we interact with our news sources. Yes, I do mean "interact". Some of us may interact rather passively by simply choosing what we read or view among the many old and new choices available to us. Others, myself included, choose to take the next step and write, or"blog", about what we've read - as therapy, or as a way to internalize what we've learned by articulating it. Two recent articles touch on this topic, providing some light but not illuminating the end of the tunnel. Since I don't see that end either, I'll just present some excerpts from them.
Terry Eastland has an insightful article at the Wilson Quarterly @ The Collapse of Big Media : Starting Over. It begins :
"It’s premature to write an obituary, but there’s no question that America’s news media—the newspapers, newsmagazines, and television networks that people once turned to for all their news—are experiencing what psychologists might call a major life passage. They’ve seen their audiences shrink, they’ve had to worry about vigorous new competitors, and they’ve suffered more than a few self-inflicted wounds—scandals of their own making. They know that more and more people have lost confidence in what they do. To many Americans, today’s newspaper is irrelevant, and network news is as compelling as whatever is being offered over on the Home Shopping Network. Maybe less. .... So it’s time to write, if not an obituary, then an account of their rise and decline and delicate prospects amid the “new media” of cable television, talk radio, and the blogosphere."
And continues :
"The most influential journalists understood that news is rarely news in the sense of being undisputed facts about people or policy, but news in the sense that it’s a product made by reporters, editors, and producers. They knew that news is about facts, but that it fundamentally reflects editorial judgments about whether particular facts are “news,” and if they are, what the news means and what its consequences may be. They knew, too, that those who define and present the news have a certain power, since news can set a public agenda. And they weren’t shy about exercising this power. That’s what made them dominant—an establishment, in fact."
"And they influenced the nation, most dramatically during the 1960s and 1970s. They probably tipped the close 1960 election between Richard Nixon and John Kennedy, when, as Theodore H. White reported in The Making of the President, 1960 (1961), the coverage clearly favored Kennedy. They early and correctly judged that the civil rights movement was news, and they turned news with datelines in the South into a national story of profound significance. They also affected the 1968 election—through what historian Paul Johnson called their “tendentious presentation” of news about the Vietnam War, which came to a head with the Tet offensive in January 1968, a major American military victory that the media cast as a defeat. Some described this portrayal as flawed reporting—notably the founding editor of this journal, Peter Braestrup, in Big Story (1977)—while others saw it as a product of bias. But the effect of the treatment of Tet was to help shift elite opinion decisively against the war. In March 1968, after nearly losing the New Hampshire primary, President Lyndon Johnson decided not to run for reelection."
The point about media bias and it's impact on the outcome of the Vietnam War is quite significant and is covered in my earlier post here . The media's complicity in that self-inflicted defeat may well have become over time a significant contributory factor to the public's disillusion with the media as authority. Americans don't like to lose or to have their leaders tell them they are losers and can't change their environment. Perhaps it is not coincidence that, after rejecting Carter's "miasma", the public migrated rightward while the media maintained a leftward path.
"Since the 1980s, however, more and more Americans have stopped relying on the traditional media for news. Some have quit the news habit entirely. Newspaper circulation has been declining, and network ratings are sharply down. Mainstream outlets no longer have a monopoly on the news, their journalism is subjected to sometimes withering scrutiny, and they are ignored when they are not criticized. Life is no longer so good."
"Whatever bias the media did not concede, and whatever places they skipped past where news might have been sought, there remained this essential fact: Most journalists were liberal in their political views and voting preferences. Today, no one really disputes that fact, nor have mainstream journalists changed much in this regard, for every new survey only confirms what all the previous ones reported. But when the mainstream media began their decline in the 1980s, they were reluctant to concede the point. In so many words, they often seemed to say, “If our liberalism is a fact—and we don’t really know that it is—it’s irrelevant.”" That was a great mistake - in Eastland's view and mine. The New Media Genie, of Fox, talk radio and blogs, is out of the bottle and won't be put back in.
For a second , more print-oriented perspective, this article in the WS Journal notes that Newspaper Circulation Continues Decline, Forcing Tough Decisions : "The newspaper industry, already suffering from circulation problems, could be looking at its worst numbers in more than a decade.Circulation numbers to be released today by the Audit Bureau of Circulations probably will show industrywide declines of 1% to 3%, according to people familiar with the situation -- possibly the highest for daily newspapers since the industry shed 2.6% of subscribers in 1990-91. ... The Wall Street Journal, published by Dow Jones & Co., expects to report today that total circulation for the six-month period declined 0.8% to 2.07 million."
Two executives express different views on this phenomena. First, and probably on target :
"At a recent industry conference, News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch sounded the alarm about what he called a "revolution" in how young people access news. News Corp. owns television stations, movie studios, cable channels and 175 newspapers world-wide. Mr. Murdoch said young people essentially relied on the Internet for news, and unless the newspaper industry recognized these changes, it will "be relegated to the status of also-rans.""
And, then, as if in counterpoint, there is the content & relevancy free salesman view :
""Newspaper circulation is important but readership is the key issue," says Don Stinson, senior vice president of marketing for Gannett's newspaper division. "At the end of the day what we want to deliver to advertisers is prospects who are ready, willing and able to buy what they have to sell. Whether the person pays for the newspaper or got it from somebody else isn't particularly relevant. It's whether they read it.""
I don't know how it all will turn out, but Eastland and Murdoch are feeling the tectonic plates shift and that is a good omen.
Terry Eastland has an insightful article at the Wilson Quarterly @ The Collapse of Big Media : Starting Over. It begins :
"It’s premature to write an obituary, but there’s no question that America’s news media—the newspapers, newsmagazines, and television networks that people once turned to for all their news—are experiencing what psychologists might call a major life passage. They’ve seen their audiences shrink, they’ve had to worry about vigorous new competitors, and they’ve suffered more than a few self-inflicted wounds—scandals of their own making. They know that more and more people have lost confidence in what they do. To many Americans, today’s newspaper is irrelevant, and network news is as compelling as whatever is being offered over on the Home Shopping Network. Maybe less. .... So it’s time to write, if not an obituary, then an account of their rise and decline and delicate prospects amid the “new media” of cable television, talk radio, and the blogosphere."
And continues :
"The most influential journalists understood that news is rarely news in the sense of being undisputed facts about people or policy, but news in the sense that it’s a product made by reporters, editors, and producers. They knew that news is about facts, but that it fundamentally reflects editorial judgments about whether particular facts are “news,” and if they are, what the news means and what its consequences may be. They knew, too, that those who define and present the news have a certain power, since news can set a public agenda. And they weren’t shy about exercising this power. That’s what made them dominant—an establishment, in fact."
"And they influenced the nation, most dramatically during the 1960s and 1970s. They probably tipped the close 1960 election between Richard Nixon and John Kennedy, when, as Theodore H. White reported in The Making of the President, 1960 (1961), the coverage clearly favored Kennedy. They early and correctly judged that the civil rights movement was news, and they turned news with datelines in the South into a national story of profound significance. They also affected the 1968 election—through what historian Paul Johnson called their “tendentious presentation” of news about the Vietnam War, which came to a head with the Tet offensive in January 1968, a major American military victory that the media cast as a defeat. Some described this portrayal as flawed reporting—notably the founding editor of this journal, Peter Braestrup, in Big Story (1977)—while others saw it as a product of bias. But the effect of the treatment of Tet was to help shift elite opinion decisively against the war. In March 1968, after nearly losing the New Hampshire primary, President Lyndon Johnson decided not to run for reelection."
The point about media bias and it's impact on the outcome of the Vietnam War is quite significant and is covered in my earlier post here . The media's complicity in that self-inflicted defeat may well have become over time a significant contributory factor to the public's disillusion with the media as authority. Americans don't like to lose or to have their leaders tell them they are losers and can't change their environment. Perhaps it is not coincidence that, after rejecting Carter's "miasma", the public migrated rightward while the media maintained a leftward path.
"Since the 1980s, however, more and more Americans have stopped relying on the traditional media for news. Some have quit the news habit entirely. Newspaper circulation has been declining, and network ratings are sharply down. Mainstream outlets no longer have a monopoly on the news, their journalism is subjected to sometimes withering scrutiny, and they are ignored when they are not criticized. Life is no longer so good."
"Whatever bias the media did not concede, and whatever places they skipped past where news might have been sought, there remained this essential fact: Most journalists were liberal in their political views and voting preferences. Today, no one really disputes that fact, nor have mainstream journalists changed much in this regard, for every new survey only confirms what all the previous ones reported. But when the mainstream media began their decline in the 1980s, they were reluctant to concede the point. In so many words, they often seemed to say, “If our liberalism is a fact—and we don’t really know that it is—it’s irrelevant.”" That was a great mistake - in Eastland's view and mine. The New Media Genie, of Fox, talk radio and blogs, is out of the bottle and won't be put back in.
For a second , more print-oriented perspective, this article in the WS Journal notes that Newspaper Circulation Continues Decline, Forcing Tough Decisions : "The newspaper industry, already suffering from circulation problems, could be looking at its worst numbers in more than a decade.Circulation numbers to be released today by the Audit Bureau of Circulations probably will show industrywide declines of 1% to 3%, according to people familiar with the situation -- possibly the highest for daily newspapers since the industry shed 2.6% of subscribers in 1990-91. ... The Wall Street Journal, published by Dow Jones & Co., expects to report today that total circulation for the six-month period declined 0.8% to 2.07 million."
Two executives express different views on this phenomena. First, and probably on target :
"At a recent industry conference, News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch sounded the alarm about what he called a "revolution" in how young people access news. News Corp. owns television stations, movie studios, cable channels and 175 newspapers world-wide. Mr. Murdoch said young people essentially relied on the Internet for news, and unless the newspaper industry recognized these changes, it will "be relegated to the status of also-rans.""
And, then, as if in counterpoint, there is the content & relevancy free salesman view :
""Newspaper circulation is important but readership is the key issue," says Don Stinson, senior vice president of marketing for Gannett's newspaper division. "At the end of the day what we want to deliver to advertisers is prospects who are ready, willing and able to buy what they have to sell. Whether the person pays for the newspaper or got it from somebody else isn't particularly relevant. It's whether they read it.""
I don't know how it all will turn out, but Eastland and Murdoch are feeling the tectonic plates shift and that is a good omen.
