New findings from a Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism show local news and original reporting still flows mostly from newspapers, according to an AP Business report in the Charlotte Observer this morning.
The Pew Center monitored 53 media outlets – newspapers, television and radio stations and Web-only operations – for their study, and found that the majority of original reporting and new information came from newspapers:
Newspapers and their Web sites provided 61 percent of the original reporting or fresh information on six major news stories that unfolded during the week of July 19-25, the study found. Local television stations and their Web sites accounted for 28 percent of the new information, followed by radio stations and their sites at 7 percent and Internet-only “new media” at 4 percent.
What would happen to blogs and other new media operations if newspapers were to disappear? Debate ensues…
“This study does suggest that if newspapers were to disappear, what would be left to aggregate?” said Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism.
Media blogger Jeff Jarvis, who wrote a book hailing Google’s business practices, thinks it’s premature to pose that question. He is teaching a City University of New York graduate journalism class on the future of digital reporting, partly because be believes printed newspapers are doomed.
“We can improve the (Internet’s) ecosystem for covering local news,” Jarvis said. “We’re still in the pre-dawn era of this transformation.”