When people were asked where they found out about news stories in a new Pew Research Center project, their answer was old media, predominantly newspapers. This is the headline table:

Sector From Which New Information Reported (Six Key Storylines)

Sector
% of All Stories

Print
48%

Local TV
28

Niche media
13

Radio
7

New media
4

Source: Pew Research Center, January 2010

I’ve been thinking about the future of newspapers a fair bit over the last few weeks, because we’ve been preparing a panel event on just that topic. It’s involved a range of reading and on-record and off-record conversations with a load of people involved with newspapers – readers, editors, pundits and the man on the Clapham Omnibus.
Newspapers, particularly quality papers, …read the rest of this article

Update: Had a good chat with Daryl Wilcox, and it looks like we’ve come to a sensible compromise that will allow Tim to do his job and Response Source to maintain its purity. All’s well, etc.
My staff writer at NMK – Tim Hoang – works for the PR company, Rainier, as well. That’s always something we’ve made very clear. I …read the rest of this article

I was at a roundtable debate this morning about Citizen Journalism (update: rather ungenerous of me not to mention this was hosted by the excellent people from iStockPhoto). Everyone saying they want to embrace CJ as part of their forward strategy. I suggest that mainstream media is attempting to contain rather than embrace conversations.
Me (to attendees from the Times and …read the rest of this article

StoryCrafter, Edelman’s version of a social media press release service, has attracted a fair amount of attention. There’s no lack of good comments already out there, but the subject’s interesting to me, so I thought I’d pitch in too.
First a round-up:
Social media press releases are designed to give journalists and bloggers the elements of a release in a mix-and-match format. …read the rest of this article

“Story rankings play havoc with traditional journalistic tenets” apparently. In his Dow Jones MarketWatch ‘Ethics Watch’ column, Thomas Kostigen says that digg-style news-voting systems are messing with his mind, continually tempting him to write popular stories.
It emerges, however, that actually it’s not digg that is directly responsible, that’s just a trendy hook for the story. It’s being on the Internet …read the rest of this article

The Observer reports an interesting decision over at the Daily Mail. With the retirement of its television critic Peter Paterson, it has opted to replace him with… no-one. Since television reviews are among the best-read sections of any newspaper, the decision seemed perverse. But, as Peter Preston explains, it is actually cleverly calculated:

Once upon a time, television was full of …read the rest of this article

The Guardian reckons Web 2.0 is ready for the mainstream with its Weekend section dominated by a 15-page feature entitled ‘A Bigger Bang’. John Lanchester’s article provides the keynote to the section, in a piece which is well-written and clever:

a new wave of innovation on the internet, an innovation focused not so much on new technology as on the way …read the rest of this article