US - Liberal media dying

And that's a good thing.

Scan the headlines of 2005 and one question seems inevitable: Will we recall this as the year when journalism in print began to die?

The ominous announcements gathered steam as the year went on. The New York Times would cut nearly 60 people from its newsroom, the Los Angeles Times 85; Knight Ridder’s San Jose Mercury News cut 16%, the Philadelphia Inquirer 15% — and that after cutting another 15% only five years earlier. By November, investors frustrated by poor financial performance forced one of the most cost-conscious newspaper chains of all, Knight Ridder, to be put up for sale.

Adding to the worry, industry fundamentals, not the general economy, were the problem — declining circulation, pressure on revenues, stock prices for the year down 20%.

It wasn’t only newspapers, either. Magazines like Newsweek , U.S. News and Business Week were suffering, too. The largest company, Time Inc., advertising and circulation falling, cut 205 people and promised to transform itself from “magazine publishing” to a “multiplatform media company.”

The former dean at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, Tom Goldstein would conclude, “Unless they urgently respond to the changing environment, newspapers risk early extinction."1

Is it true? From here on will the delivery of news in ink on paper begin a rapid and accelerating decline? Newspapers are the country’s biggest newsgathering organizations in most towns and the Internet’s primary suppliers. What would their decline portend?

For two years, we have tracked in this report the major trends in the American news media (See Previous Reports). What is occurring, we have concluded, is not the end of journalism that some have predicted. But we do see a seismic transformation in what and how people learn about the world around them. Power is moving away from journalists as gatekeepers over what the public knows. Citizens are assuming a more active role as assemblers, editors and even creators of their own news. Audiences are moving from old media such as television or newsprint to new media online. Journalists need to redefine their role and identify which of their core values they want to fight to preserve —something they have only begun to consider.

This is why you are seeing left wing outlets like the Guardian and the BBC warming up to bloggers. They know their days as sole gatekeepers of the megaphone, spouting out left wing propaganda, are numbered.
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