Busy day. Lots of fires to put out. Here’s the grenade tossed into newspapers collective lap this morning. It’s a study by the Pew Charitable Trusts on how people get their news, and as you might expect, it’s not a ringing endorsement for print.
Boiled down, the findings say that for many folks—and particularly young people—the Internet is their primary source of news. The newspaper or the magazine is now a supplement. The good news would be that newspaper Web sites continue to be leaders in this category, and perhaps investments in these sites will pay off. The downside is the report’s suggestion that this transformation is happening quicker than many people expected and that the way people use and find news on the net is different.
Think about your own habits. We browse the Web differently than we browse a newspaper. One is more linear than the other. On the Web, itt’s much easier to skip over—or never even run into—stories you think you have no interest in. Newspapers are a serendipitous experience.
How you browse determines what you find and what you don’t find. My take is that the next big thing in news Web sites will be redesigns and reprogramming that reflect how people use the Internet. Very soon, successful online news sites will do more than just have a different delivery system. They will look different and be different.
Beyond the arc: Lots of criticism today from the Blue Devil hard core over our story suggesting that J.J. Redick isn’t at his best in the Sweet 16. They say the Journal is anti-Duke. Tell that to the Wake fans ... All I want is a good game tonight and watch Shelden Williams and Glen Davis battle in the paint.
Your host is Ken Otterbourg, the managing editor at the Winston-Salem Journal. It's a forum to discuss the media, from
Wow. Lot here. Did you read about the Pew survey on the web? If so, I’d say you get your news from the internet, too.
I don’t know about the future of newspapers. You can curl up with a book, so I think they’re here to stay. Not so of newspapers, built for people with elongated wing-spans.
I check my e-mail and certain web sites before I read the paper. And the time I look at the paper is getting later and later. I haven’t picked up today’s. I have, however, checked the Journal’s web site, the paper in my home town, and USA Today, because it posts frequent updates.
Local ads and coupons are of concern. Most papers don’t put them on their web sites. I wouldn’t miss the “throw aways” though.
I do browse papers differently from web sites. But don’t kid yourself that I read more stories. Life is too short to read things one doesn’t want to read.
I think you are right about news sites needing to look for ways to function differently. Interactive articles seem to attract attention. But then, who’s the authority? Seems a real problem could occur with respect to fact and opinion, though journalists were never really authorities. Even this blog sometimes appears to be a justification for the status quo and trying to figure out how to keep money coming in.
And on to JJ! Why would a Winston-Salem paper pull for the Dookies? Duke is not located here, and they are not the “university of the people.” Poor JJ worked so hard to break those records. So?
And do you limit yourself to 1500 characters and have to keep rephrasing every second sentence so the end of your statement doesn’t get eaten by the computer, which is exasperatingly annoying? If so, it’s amazing that you ever post.
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