old media loss no gain for new media

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FACTS, FIGURES

Newsroom budgets are being slashed - and old media loss does not mean new media gain.

Since 2000, newspapers have cut 30 per cent, or $1.6bn, from newsroom budgets, leaving only $4.4bn (€3.2bn), according to a joint study by the Pew Research Centre and the Poynter Institute.

The reason this is a loss for new as well as old media comes from the same centre. Notes the Financial Times, in the same article:

new media " ... concentrating on analysis and debate ... are increasingly dependent on a shrinking base of reported journalism. Pew's analysis of more than 1m blogs and social media sites discovered that 80 per cent of links were to traditional US media sites."

Emphasis added. That effectively means the new media boom is four-fifths sourced from centuries of journalism tradition, calling into question the whole notion of "new" media. Similar claims were made for radio and television.

LINK

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/aecc08c6-2fd2-11df-9153-00144feabdc0.html

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naomi klein on journalism under corporate convergence

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Naomi Klein, author of The Shock Doctrine, named one of the
40 top bloggers by the UK Times.

ARCHIVE WATCH

Back in September 2000, Naomi Klein had this to say in her column carried by Canada newspaper, Globe and Mail:

The question that faces all the media outlets being "bundled" into synergy-driven communication conglomerates (and that includes CTV, Global, Maclean's magazine, Rogers television, and all of Conrad Black's papers sold to CanWest) is whether journalism can survive in this climate of corporate convergence. The very essence of good journalism, after all, is fierce independence and freedom from entangling conflicts of interest. How can that be reconciled with synergy's quest for integration and cross-promotion?

Nearly 10 years later, and trillions wiped off "free" markets, the answer seems obvious - it can't be reconciled. Journalism has not survived.

Emphasis added.

LINK

http://www.naomiklein.org/articles/2000/09/one-persons-synergy-columnists-nightmare