Bloggers Hammer Mitt Romney
The Republican presidential frontrunner was the target of significant criticism from bloggers last week in response to his remarks on Planned Parenthood and Rush Limbaugh as well as a column he wrote in 2009.
Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
The Republican presidential frontrunner was the target of significant criticism from bloggers last week in response to his remarks on Planned Parenthood and Rush Limbaugh as well as a column he wrote in 2009.
New research released in this report finds that mobile devices are adding to people’s news consumption, strengthening the lure of traditional news brands and providing a boost to long-form journalism. Eight in ten who get news on smartphones or tablets, for instance, get news on conventional computers as well. People are taking advantage, in other words, of having easier access to news throughout the day – in their pocket, on their desks and in their laps.
Perhaps no topic in technology attracted more attention in 2011 than the rise of social media and its potential impact on news. “If searching for news was the most important development of the last decade, sharing news may be among the most important of the next,” we wrote in a May 2011 report analyzing online news behavior called Navigating News Online.
In 2011, the landscape of community news websites reached a new level of maturity. Some seed grants ran out, there were more startups, some highly publicized closures and a clearer sense of what is needed to succeed.
The faltering U.S. economy was the No. 1 story in the American news media in 2011, with coverage increasing substantially from a year earlier when economic unease helped alter the political landscape in the midterm elections, according to The Year in the News 2011, a new report conducted by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism.
The newspaper industry enters 2012 neither dying nor assured of a stable future. The industry has rallied around a story about itself – that year-by year it is developing new digital products and new revenue streams to transition from dependence on print advertising. In 2011, that traditional advertising pool declined for a sixth consecutive year. The website of the Gannett Company, emphasizing those digital initiatives, now intentionally has no mention of newspapers on its home page.
Two numbers symbolize the intensifying challenge and opportunity the digital world poses for the news industry: In 2011, social media giant Facebook grew to 133 million active users from 117 million in the U.S.1 And in the final months of the year, tablet ownership in the U.S. nearly doubled, to 18% of Americans.
The year 2011 was one of marked transition and even some positive numbers for network news.
After a year of declining revenues in 2009, followed by a year of declining ratings in 2010, cable outlets found some relief in the extraordinary news year of 2011. It was a relief, however, that could not answer the looming long-range audience challenges.
After years of losing audience and revenue, local television news appears to have settled into a kind of equilibrium. Stations made less income in 2011 than the year before, but the decline was about what might be expected in a non-election year. And the overall audience for local TV news grew as stations added newscasts at different times and on additional platforms, including their digital channels. Local stations also expanded their online, mobile and social media offerings, but most have not yet generated a substantial audience.