Oggi il Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism ha pubblicato il suo annuale State of the News Media report e c'è poco da stare allegri. Il punto più delicato è che il settore industriale delle news a stampa sta avviandosi verso il declino.
The problems of newspapers also became more acute in 2011. Even as online audiences grew, print circulation continued to decline. Even more critically, so did ad revenues. In 2011, losses in print advertising dollars outpaced gains in digital revenue by a factor of roughly 10 to 1, a ratio even worse than in 2010. When circulation and advertising revenue are combined, the newspaper industry has shrunk 43% since 2000. The civic implications of the decline in newspapers are also becoming clearer. More evidence emerged that newspapers (whether accessed in print or digitally) are the primary source people turn to for news about government and civic affairs. If these operations continue to shrivel or disappear, it is unclear where, or whether, that information would be reported. In sum, the news industry is not much closer to a new revenue model than a year earlier and has lost more ground to rivals in the technology industry.
L'unico - piccolo - dato positivo è che il consumo di notizie continua ad aumentare. Ma questo, per ora, non porta a un aumento delle entrate per chi le news le produce e le distribuisce. A meno di non inventarsi qualcosa di totalmente diverso (e qui ci vorrebbe una faccetta).
But growing evidence also suggests that news is becoming a more important and pervasive part of people’s lives. That, in the end, could prove a saving factor for the future of journalism.
State of the News Media 2012