The Pew Research Center’s State of the News Media 2013 has some bright spots for the newspaper industry after years of gloomy reports from that sector.
For the first time since the start of the recent economic downturn, the report’s authors say newspaper organizations can have a “modicum of optimism” about the industry, largely because of the rise in online revenues and digital pay plans. For those who want to enter the journalism profession, strengths in those areas mean new types of jobs are opening up in otherwise downsized newsrooms.
The report highlights a few positive signs from its annual report: Publicly traded newspaper companies saw their share prices rise in 2012 — several of them went up more than 30 percent. In addition, newspapers on the market are finding buyers. Pew particularly cited Warren Buffett’s purchase of Media General’s 63 newspapers as an indication that print is still viable in the United States, especially at small and mid-sized papers.
The movement toward digital pay plans has helped newspapers stabilize circulation revenue. These plans have been implemented at 450 of the 1,380 daily papers in the United States. Gannett put all 80 of its community papers on digital pay plans by the end of last year, and other chains did the same. At Gannett, the new digital pay plan increased circulation revenues by 17 percent in the fourth quarter of 2012, compared to the same period in 2011.
Pew Research indicates that getting people used to paying for content digitally will help the industry stabilize in the long-term, regardless of the platforms people adopt in the future.
Digital advertising now makes up 15 percent of revenue for newspapers. Digital revenue is now very important in stabilizing the industry because of the decline in print advertising, which has fallen for six years in a row. It dropped $1.5 billion, or 7.3 percent, in 2012. Newspapers have increased their use of online display advertising by 22 percent in the last two years, according to Pew Research.
Although continued economic strains on the industry keep newspapers from hiring many traditional journalists, the rise in social media and digital platforms for news have opened up new types of jobs: “Digital brings with it a host of novel newsroom job descriptions — aggregator, coordinator of community conversations, technologist,” according to the report.
In general, the report concluded that there is still “substantial demand for original reporting” and for providing context and synthesis to the flood of information available to readers. Newspapers that can succeed on multiple platforms will have the most opportunity to thrive.
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