The Sorry State of U.S. News Media [1]
Submitted by Diane Farsetta [2] on
The Project for Excellence in Journalism's "State of the News Media 2006 [3]" study claims, "The troubles of 2005, especially in print, dealt a further blow to ... journalism in the public interest." While newspaper circulation, ad income and staff levels decreased, "the industry will still post profit margins of 20%." The study also examined news coverage across numerous print, broadcast and online outlets on one randomly-chosen day, and found "enormous repetition and amplification of just two dozen stories." This means that "while there were more media outlets ... they were covering less news," reported the [4] New York Times. Noting that national broadcast reports repeatedly quoted the same few people, the study cautions that "more coverage ... does not always mean greater diversity of voices." The "shallowest" news media was cable news, according to the study. Bloggers [5] "raised new issues," but "did almost no original reporting."