A "new paradox of journalism" has emerged in which the number of news outlets continues to grow, yet the number of stories covered and the depth of many reports is decreasing, according to an annual review of the news business being released today by a watchdog group.
Many television, radio and newspaper newsrooms are cutting their staffs as advertising revenue stagnates, but blogs and other online ventures lack the size or inclination to generate information, reports the Project for Excellence in Journalism, a research institute affiliated with the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
The study depicts the media in an interregnum -- with the reach of print, radio and television reduced, but the promise of an egalitarian online "citizen journalism" unfulfilled.
"It's probably glib and even naive to say simply that more platforms equal more choices," project Director Tom Rosenstiel said. "The content has to come from somewhere, and as older news-gathering media decline, some of the strengths they offer in monitoring the powerful and verifying the facts may be weakening as well."
As a result, consumers need to get information from a variety of sources to understand the world around them, the study concludes. It also finds that public opinions about the traditional media, though still low, have improved in a few respects.
The swiftly shifting platforms for information -- with network news available by podcast and U.S. soldiers maintaining blogs from Iraq -- have created an odd interplay between new and old media, the study found.
Companies like Google and Yahoo have managed to thrive and generate enormous advertising revenue, in part by aggregating and distributing information produced by traditional media outlets.
"The more they succeed," the project said, "the faster they erode the product they are selling, unless the economic model is radically changed."
The study predicts that old-media outlets may begin this year to demand compensation from aggregators such as Google News. Alternatively, new-media companies could build their own news operations, but those efforts have been slow in the making.
The most threatened of the traditional media continue to be newspapers, particularly big-city dailies. Weekday circulation dropped 2.6% and Sunday circulation dropped 3.1% as of September from the year before; print advertising declined; and a 1% to 2% increase in ad revenue came almost entirely because of growth online of about 30%.
