Pundit Country

As I wrote a few days ago, the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism released their report on the issues facing media outlets in 2009. The report covered corporate-owned, non-profit, and new media. The Columbia Journalism Review looked over the report and highlighted some of the more noteworthy trends and facts they read:

1. We estimate that the newspaper industry has lost $1.6 billion in annual reporting and editing capacity since 2000, or roughly 30 percent, which leaves an extra $4.4 billion remaining. Even if the economy improves, we predict more cuts in 2010.
2. $141 million of nonprofit money has flowed into new media efforts over the last four years (not including public broadcasting). That is less than one-tenth of the losses in newspaper resources alone.
3. A new survey on online economics, released in this report for the first time, finds that 79 percent of online news customers say they rarely if ever have clicked on an online ad.
4. Advertising during the year declined for the first time since 2002, according to data from eMarketer. Updated August projections put the declines at 4.6 percent, to $22.4 billion in total revenues.
5. Only about one third of Americans (35 percent) have a news destination they would call a favorite and even among these users, only 19 percent said they would continue to visit if the site put up a paywall.
6. 71 percent of Americans feel now that most news sources are biased in their coverage and 70 percent feel overwhelmed rather than informed by the amount of news and information they see.
7. At night, when cable is dominated by ideological talk shows, Fox grew by nearly a quarter to an average of 2.13 million viewers at any given moment. MSNBC rose 3 percent to 786,000, while CNN fell 15 percent to 891,000 viewers…In daytime, CNN was up 9 percent over 2008 to an average of 621,000 viewers. But Fox daytime viewership grew again by almost a quarter, to roughly twice CNN’s audience (1.2 million viewers). MSNBC, relying on NBC news people more than talk show hosts, fell 8 percent to 325,000 viewers.

So basically, what you see here is a vicious circle constantly reinforcing itself. Since the start of the Great Recession, legacy media publishers are losing tons of money in traditional advertising so they’ve cut costs and some have increased their online presence to include online ads. Since most people aren’t clicking those online ads, publishers are flirting with the idea of paywalls to make up the lost revenue. The problem with this is that most people will simply stop going to the site if they have to pay (something publishers should have realized after The New York Times‘ disastrous fling with them (although it appears not even the NYT learned that lesson)). So publishers have spent even more money they will not see coming back as revenue, which forces them to cut back even more.

Since New Media seems to be linking quite a bit to Old Media, expect them to start transitioning to either original reporting with little or no payout, looking for hyperlocal sources to link to, or an increase in opinion pieces, leading to both a loss of investigative reporting and objective news in the hands of a very few number of people.

from the week ending March 14, 2010

• Meet the hypocrites: Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers.

• Media Matters: Right-wing media eagerly spread absurd claim that Obama plans to “ban sport fishing”.

• Wonk Room: Girl Suing High School Over Canceled Prom: School Is Saying ‘You Can Be Gay, Just Don’t Be Openly Gay’.

• Alan Colmes: Neal Horsley Arrested For Terrorist Threat Against Elton John.

• The Family Policy Network is attacking VA Gov. Bob McDonnell and warning that he has “made an enemy of the grassroots” by being insufficiently committed to discriminating against gays.

• Prop 8 Backers Seek to Take Control Of California Courts.

• Meet The New Texas Social Studies Requirements.

• The Archbishop of Denver tries to explain why a student with two mommies cannot attend their pre-school.

• Why are gay couples being excluded from Iowa’s domestic abuse bill?

• Rather than allow a lesbian student to attend prom with her girlfriend, a Mississippi school has decided to cancel the prom entirely.  Pathetic.

• Apparently, Chief Justice John Roberts thinks it is “very troubling“ for the President to criticize his rulings. Boo hoo.

• Rod Parsley, host of the conference called “Collide 2010″ declares that The End Times are coming that we are the “Rapture Generation”.

• Porter: Our Goal is “To Take Dominion in Every Area” and “Occupy Until Jesus Comes“.

• Ken Hutcherson blasts Focus on the Family for supposedly forcing James Dobson out and for not hiring him to take over, even though he wouldn’t have taken the job anyway.

• It’s amazing how quickly people go from “I don’t care who you are, this is funny” to “I deeply apologize” when they get caught for sending out racist emails.

• Conservatives hit back at Liz Cheney and company over their attacks on Justice Department lawyers.

• David Weigel: Palin: Growing Up, I ‘Hustled Over the Border’ For Health Care.

• Steve Benen: Anti-Reason Forces Unite.

• EmptyWheel: Clarence Thomas’ Revenge

As always, the majority of these items come from Right Wing Watch and Hatewatch.

“I don’t want a national healthcare system or a balanced budget. I’m a Democrat. I demand them!”

-James D. Langston, Highline substitute teacher and proud delegate for the WA State 33rd District Democrats

While the info originates from the Pew Project For Excellence In Journalism, the following interesting tidbits were highlighted in an article by Eric Alterman and Danny Goldberg for the Center for American Progress:

• 48 million people get their news from the likes of Michael Savage, Rush Limbaugh, Neil Boortz, and G. Gordon Liddy.
• The numbers of radio stations that carry at least some talk shows grew to 2,056 from 1,370 the year before, according to Inside Radio magazine.
• That’s more than twice the collective audience for the three TV network evening news shows combined,
  • more than five times the audience of the three network Sunday news shows,
  • nearly seven times the combined audience for cable news shows,
  • nearly 10 times the audience for NPR’s “Morning Edition” and “All Things Considered,” and
  • 16 times the audience for Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert.

• one-third of talk radio listeners define themselves as moderates or progressive Democrats.

• 9 of the top 10 talk radio shows are hosted by implacable conservatives.
• 

I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

-Martin Luther King, Letters from a Birmingham Jail

While MLK was not talking to the issue of full health care rights for women (including abortion) or to the LGBT movement, his words hold resonance for both. Waiting patiently by the sidelines and allowing the political elites of this country to determine the timeline to do the right thing will only guarantee that it will never happen. Whether it be healthcare, DADT, DOMA, or a fair health care system for all, it’s constant, unyielding pressure from the grassroots that forces change. Just something to keep in mind as we enter the political season of 2010.