If I were a communications prof, I’d make this study – which is to say I wish someone would:
Take one day’s journalism in America and analyze critically what we have now so we know what we are replacing in a new media economy. How much of it (measured by resource that went into it) is:
* Investigation – the top of the pyramid.
* Original stories that bring information we would not have unless reporters went and asked questions.
* Event coverage.
* Stories that come from PR.
* Commodity news – rewrites and repetition.
News in a market will no longer be owned by one or a few outlets. News will be a much larger ecosystem to which many will contribute in many ways – an ecosystem that spreads outside the market. To understand what news will look like, we can’t analyze just one organization. We need to analyze the whole.
Isn’t that what progress is all about? As fast as technology has advanced in the last 5 years I am not surprised. Now everyone can take a part in addressing various world or local issues. It’s finally at it’s grass roots, and I for one am happy the big guns aren’t the only ones with a pen/phone/video.
I congratulate all the creative writers out there… keep up the great work.
I think a pyramid is almost the right metaphor, but it is more like a cascade. The real stories uncovered at the top roll down and provide the material for almost everything that happens below.
And it is the top two levels which are suffering the biggest decimation. Gathering information is slow, expensive and requires skill. Hashing and mashing it, not so much.
If you look online right now you will find almost every political blog has Obama’s full speech posted. Is this any better than in the old days when one picked up the one or two big dailies in a town to read something like this?
Repetition (even with added commentary) does not expand knowledge, it is just an echo.
I still don’t see where the money is going to come from to keep the top two tiers operating.
Rather than try and theorise all these ecosystems and food chains, are we better off adopting a much more local model and aiming to own coverage of our local area in a way which engages with local readership.
My bet is that it’s going to have a very wide base and a very narrow point.