Major study released The State of the New Media 2004 Sunday by the Project for Excellence in Journalism takes a critical view of the trends in journalism including:
* a shrinking audience for news
* new investment focuses on distributing the news not collecting it.
* less effort is spent on synthesis or ordering of news.
* standards are changing with organizations not keeping the same standards with their organizations, such as what is acceptable for web sites compared with print.
* the audience loss will grow because little is spent building new audiences.
* the manipulators of the press and public appear to be gaining leverage over the journalists.
The report is 500 pages. The overview is more manageable today.
Coverage from NY Times: Study Finds a Waning Appetite for News; Romenesko: Report: News biz is in middle of “epochal transformation”; Washington Post: In a Deluge of Scandal, An Erosion of Trust; and USA Today: This just in: The future of news.
This report should keep lots of blogging journalists busy. Here are comments I’ve read by Dan Gillmor, Vin Crosby, Terry Heaton and Jeff Jarvis.