Print News Fading, Still Source of Much News

CNet's Dan Farber took a look, not only at the popular news of how print media is dying a slow death, but also what contribution to the news print journalists are still making. According to research quoted, while the physical publications are quickly becoming a thing of the past much of the news that makes its way into circulation via blogs and other means still originates from the hard work of those print journalists. (We discussed a similar perspective on the news a week back.) "While the Internet is growing as the place where people go for news, the revenue simply isn't catching up fast enough. The less obvious part of the Internet overtaking newspapers as the main source for national and international news is that much of the seed content--the original reporting that breaks national and international news and is subsequently refactored by legions of bloggers--comes from the reporters and editors working at the financially strapped newspapers and national and local television outlets. [...] As the financial pressures mount--the outlook for 2009 is dismal--and the cost cutting continues, we can only hope that the original news reporting by top-flight journalists is not a major casualty."

Comments

AP and UPI get much of their news from subscribers

[swschrad]

both services have in their contract a "republish" clause on all of their clients' content. with The AP, it means a little more, as The AP is a cooperative owned by the newspapers and broadcasters itself (broadcasters are a subclass of ownership.)

any local stories you have on AP and UPI come from local news outlets, unless there is major statewide interest. the wire services have already been stripped down heavily, and fee cuts The AP will be making for the 2009 and 2010 years, as reported, mean the service has to cut its size AGAIN, by about a third.

and since 90-plus percent of their income comes from local outfits' budgets, you can see the fallacy of the argument by phorest.

As the locals go bust, the whole infrastructure is going to go down with them.