Old Media vs New Media

Reuters has some stats regarding the percentage of Americans who get their news online as opposed to getting it by traditional means.  I am certainly someone who gets their news from the web.  I don't subscribe to a newspaper and my TV is really just a monitor for my DVD player and recently re-acquired XBox 360. 

Here's an excerpt right from Reuters.com

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Nearly 70 percent of Americans believe traditional journalism is out of touch, and nearly half are turning to the Internet to get their news, according to a new survey.

While most people think journalism is important to the quality of life, 64 percent are dissatisfied with the quality of journalism in their communities, a We Media/Zogby Interactive online poll showed.

"That's a really encouraging reflection of people who care A) about journalism and B) understand that it makes a difference to their lives," said Andrew Nachison, of iFOCOS, a Virginia-based think tank which organized a forum in Miami where the findings were presented.

Nearly half of the 1,979 people who responded to the survey said their primary source of news and information is the Internet, up from 40 percent just a year ago. Less than one third use television to get their news, while 11 percent turn to radio and 10 percent to newspapers.

...

Howard Finberg, of the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Florida, said the public often doesn't understand that the sources they are accessing online such as Google News and Yahoo News pull stories from newspapers, television, wire services and other media sources.

"It's delivered in a non-traditional form, that doesn't necessarily mean there isn't traditional journalism underneath it," he explained.

 

I disagree with the latter half of the excerpt.  I don't think I'm alone in realizing that a lot of sites, like Google news, are an aggregator of news from other sources, neatly grouped and delivered to be more convenient.  I get most of my online news directly from the online entity of its source (ie Reuters.com, CNNMoney.com, WashingtonPost.com, etc, etc). 

Journalism certainly isn't dead, and I don't think anyone really dedicated to delivering news via the internet is out to try and kill it.  It's simply an advance in the method of delivery.  The internet has obvious advantages over print media.  The fact that you don't need to wait for printing and delivery makes it amazingly useful for breaking stories.  By way of RSS feeds you can be told when the news happens as opposed to dedicating your time to specifically monitoring the evening broadcast. 

I totally understand why the old media is wary of the internet.  The newspaper has been around in the States since the late 1600's.  I understand the fear that they'll be replaced.  I'm sure the town crier was scared shitless when newspapers started coming out, fearing that he would be replaced.  Maybe a savvy town crier or two could have embraced printed media and started distributing their own newspaper.  The less-savvy who complained and derided the newspapers probably had to look for new jobs.  This new wave of internet vs print/tv/radio news is the same thing, and should be a non-issue.

If old media outlets would embrace the internet the way Reuters and the Washington Post, among others, have, they won't have anything to fear.  Howard Finberg is at least partially right -

"It's delivered in a non-traditional form, that doesn't necessarily mean there isn't traditional journalism underneath it,"

 

I agree, but I don't think it's the public who need to pay attention to that fact.