David Black

“The state of the American news media in 2008 is more troubled than a year ago. And the problems, increasingly, appear to be different than many experts have predicted.”

“The State of the News Media 2008 is the fifth edition of our annual report on the health and status of American journalism.”

“News is shifting from being a product — today’s newspaper, website or newscast — to becoming a service — how can you help me, even empower me?… A news organization and a news website are no longer final destinations.”

“Two stories — the war in Iraq and the 2008 presidential election campaign — represented more than a quarter of the stories in newspapers, on television and online last year, the project found.”

“John Hutcheson, S&UN’s online editor, told Journalism.co.uk that the group was aiming to let the reader ‘take ownership of the community sections’ of the sites by using only light moderation of material submitted to them.”

“Regional newspaper publisher Trinity Mirror is set to launch two new ‘hyperlocal’ websites next month.”

“The simple takeaway is that younger audiences are no less interested in news, they just get it online. Print attracts older audiences:”

“Younger news readers, though less likely than average to read newspapers, are more likely to get news online, while heavy readers of newspapers are more likely than average to read online versions of print brands”

“The Internet is a river, it’s not a well. Don’t let your web site be a well where readers go to die… The point of the metaphor is the importance of linking…and sending people out to other web resources instead of trying to hold them on your s

“Carat issued revised forecasts for global advertising expenditures in 2008, lowering them marginally, to 6.0% from 6.2% in September last year… The strongest growth remains in internet/digital, at 23.3% for 2008″

“Users can complete maths puzzles of increasing complexity to give their votes more weight, so the news is biased towards the cleverest, or at least most mathematically gifted, users.”