Death (or Live?) of American Journalism-Part 2

1
Tom Johnson
t o m @ j t j o h n s o n . c o m
Co-founder-Managing Director
Institute for Analytic Journalism
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Renesan - Santa Fe, NM
Nov 2020
Death (or Life?)
of
American Journalism
Part II

Session II Topics
2
• Part II - 2000 to present; future speculation
• 20-year trends
• Decline in local media/media differentiation
• What Can Be Done.

Journalism’s Economic Models in the OLD
Information Age
 Secure, local advertising monopolies.
 Media selling not news, but audiences
 Especially in locally owned newspapers
 Dominant broadcasting media
 Symbiosis between readers and advertisers
3

Media Ownership and Regulation
 1934 – FCC – ”…regulating interstate and international communications
by radio, television, wire, satellite and cable (Federal Communications
Commission).”
 1941 National TV Ownership Rule: “… a broadcaster cannot own
television stations that reach more than 35 percent of the nation’s homes”
 1970 Radio/TV Cross-Ownership Restriction: “…prohibits a
broadcaster from owning a radio station and a TV station in the same
market”
 1975 Newspaper/Broadcast Cross-Ownership
Prohibition:”…discourages ownership of a newspaper and a TV station
in the same market”
4

Media De-regulation
 1981: FCC overturns existing rules; “…an overall reduction in
FCC oversight of station and network operations”
 Television licenses: expanded from 3 years to 5; corporations
now allowed to own up to 12 separate TV stations, up from 5.
 1987: 4-0 vote eliminates Fairness Doctrine
 But cable broadcast shifted “some” of the media
independence argument. Broadcasting no longer understood
as a geographical factor.
5

1996 Telecommunications ACT
 Allows fewer, but larger corporations, to own/operate
more media enterprises within (e.g. radio) and across
media forms (e.g. TV and newspapers in same market).
 Triggered massive and historic consolidation of media.
 < 5 years: radio station ownership dropped from 5,100
owners to 3,800.
 Does not open markets or formats
 Central, RECORDED programming. Ignored local markets
6

Number of Corporations Controlling Media
7

Media’s Looooooong-tail
10
Media offerings
Mediausers

Journalism’s Econ Models in the DATA Age
 Relatively fixed costs of print news production.
 editorial = 10-15% of total cost (5-10% in broadcast)
 Paper and printing = 25-35%
 Distribution = 30-40%
 Admin/marketing = 10-15%
 Vague usage of “news” by citizens
11
“…individual readers on average do NOT read 75 percent of
the articles in a newspaper. They just don’t find them
valuable.”

Journalism’s Econ Models in the INFO Age
 Elimination of the “material” production of print news
 Since 2000±, nationalization of news.
 Consumers have “high- and broad-choice” marketplace.
 Challenge for media institutions (journalism) is more
about audience time than locale, products or finances.
 Advertisers: NOT about people in a place, but people of a
demographic cast
 Newspapers still generate 87 percent of all news
12

19
Partial list: Each
a local
newspaper
advertiser.

20
The “Big Four”
retail banks in the
United States
collectively hold
45% of all
customer bank
deposits for a total
of $4.6 trillion.

22

Stated emphasis of the
parent company…
maximize shareholder ROI

Newsroom employment 2008 - 2019
23

Where have newspapers disappeared?
25

Major findings: And Then There Was One
 Fewer than a dozen cities of any size have two competing
dailies
 Closure of a competing metro dailies often leads to
governmental inefficiency and higher costs for city
residents.
 Civic engagement declines when local newspapers shut
down. Lower voter turnout.
 Declining newspaper = barriers for economic development
26

COVID-19 Newsroom Cutback Tracker
28
Daily Update:
https://www.poynter.org/b
usiness-work/2020/here-
are-the-newsroom-layoffs-
furloughs-and-closures-
caused-by-the-coronavirus/

Minneapolis
Pioneer Press
29
29

What Can Be Done at the governmental level?
 Break up the oligopolies in print, broadcast and,
probably, social media.
 Change the FCC rulings on multiple media ownership.
 Eliminate cross ownership of print and broadcast properties
 Reduce number of stations owned.
30

Alternative Financing?
 Government financing? Eh………. I don’t think so, but....
31

Alternative Financing?
 Non-profits?
32

Alternative Financing: Grants?
 Non-profits?
 Grants
 Community Foundations
 Corporate “investment” in non-profits
 Community fund-raisers a la public radio model
33

COVID19 Funding for Journalism
34

Potential Mega-funding
• March 2018: Google commits $300 million to fund local
journalism programs and initiatives;
• January 2019: Facebook pledges $300 million to support
local journalism projects;
• February 2019: The Knight Foundation says it will double its
investment in local journalism to $300 million over the next
five years;
• March 2019: The American Journalism Project announces
a $49 million fund to support local nonprofit newsrooms.
36

New Media Chips In - Google
37
 Google News Initiative
 Products: “…build products to meet the needs of news
organizations and grow their digital businesses.”
 Partnerships: “…collaborate with news organizations to solve
important business and industry-wide challenges”
 Programs: “…develop and support programs to drive
innovation across the news industry.”

Change the Profession?
 Emphasize in-house continuous education
 Collaborative Journalism
 NM Press Assoc. could lead in state-wide effort to report the
COVID-19 story
 Covering state agencies and elected officials.
 Lead integrations of print, broadcast and social media
 Implement “Show-and-link” in print
38
“…corrective action
plan, unveiled at a
news conference…”

Show-and-Link
39
“…action plan,
unveiled at a news
conference…”
“…atop the scathing
review of city financial
processes released in
September…”

Change Journalism Education
 Stop focusing on binary explanations; explain complexity
 Embrace Qualitative, Quantitative and GIS to report and
tell stories
 Show students that there is more to journalism than The
NYTimes, WashPost, TV nets and cable channels
 Trade Journals; Business2Business specialties, Newsletters,
Technical Writing,
40

New Tools for Journalism
Jour
Edu
Drones
Virtual
Reality
AI
Voice
to Text
Live
Streaming
Social
Network
Analysis
Forensic
Accounting
Image
Forensics
41

Wrap It Up
 Journalism’s traditional media are declining
 Audiences
 Finances
 Employment
 Civic influence
 Major changes needed in how journalism works
 Greater focus on multiple revenue streams
 Greater focus on multiple delivery methods
 Great focus on education – university and newsroom
42

What can you do?
 Give subscriptions or donations to local media.
 Santa Fe New Mexican
 Santa Fe Reporter
 Rio Grande Sun
 ABQ Journal and Journal North
 KSFR
 Take the newspaper's ad with you and tell the clerk you
bought it bcs of the ad.
43

Conclusion
44
-30-
Tom Johnson
t o m @ j t j o h n s o n . c o m
Co-founder-Managing Director
Institute for Analytic Journalism
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Renesan - Santa Fe, NM
Nov 2020

For the first time, The New York Times’ digital
subscriptions generate more revenue than its print
ones
45

47
Data In+Analysis=InfoOut/Stories Variable
Data In + Analysis
=InfoOut/Stories
Variable

48
Readers, Viewers, Citizens
Readers,
Viewers,
Citizens Data
Needs

Journalism: The linchpin
Data In + Analysis
=InfoOut/Stories
Variable

53
… and switch to a weekly
printed newspaper
delivered by mail.
The nonprofit Tribune’s
board of directors
announced the decision
Monday, shortly after The
Tribune and the Deseret
News released their
decision to end a
generations-long print
partnership.

New Media Chips In - Microsoft
 “Microsoft says … its News service has 550 million monthly
users and has generated $1 billion in ‘sustainable’ revenue
for the industry.”
 Microsoft: “New steps to preserve and protect journalism and
local newsrooms”
 Support local newsrooms: Provide tools, technology, expanded
distribution and funding for pilot programs
• Integrity: Use technology to tackle tech-driven threats such as deepfakes
and disinformation, and tools to improve media literacy
• Security & safety: Help to support and protect journalists from threats,
including legal and cyberthreats
56

The number of teachers and support staff willing to return at
each elementary school:
 Acequia Madre — 5
 Amy Biehl Community — 3
 Aspen Community — 6
 Atalaya — 19
 Carlos Gilbert — 6
 Chaparral — 6
 Cesar Chavez — 12
 E.J. Martinez — 3
 El Camino Real Academy — 22
 El Dorado Community — 13
 El Camino Real Academy — 22
 Kearny — 7
 Gonzales Community — 10
 Nava — 4
 Nina Otero Community — 11
 Piñon — 12
 Ramirez Thomas — 10
 Salazar — 1
 Nye Early Childhood — 6
 Tesuque — 0
 Sweeney — 5
 Wood Gormley — 4
 Overall — 165
58

231 ways publishers can make media pay
59
https://whatsnewinpublishing.com/
231-ways-publishers-can-make-
media-pay/

Major findings
 Vanishing Newspapers
 lost 1,800 papers since 2004: >60 dailies and 1,700 weeklies.
 Roughly half of the remaining 7,112 – 1,283 dailies and 5,829
weeklies – in small and rural communities.
 The majority – around 5,500 – have a circulation of less than
15,000.
60

What is Causing the Extinction of Newspapers?
The current form of newspapers is nearing extinction. Key
driving factors:
• Affordability and accessibility of mobile devices
• Increased technology adoption
• Economic growth
• Newspaper business models, financial structures, and revenue-generation
practices
• Consumer behaviors related to price sensitivity and changing media preferences
• Government regulation and financial support for the media
• Demographic changes such as increase in literacy
61

Major findings
 Living Without a Newspaper
 200 of the 3,143 counties in the United States without any
paper.
 1,449 counties, ranging in size from several hundred residents
to more than a million, have only one newspaper, usually a
weekly. More than 1,700 weeklies closed
 More than 2,000 counties have no daily paper.
62

What can be done?
 Monetize the Crisis
 Pivot to Philanthropy
 Tax the Platforms
 Fund Journalism Publicly
 Low-cost per-story subscription
71

What can be done?
 Monetize the Crisis
 Pivot to Philanthropy
 Tax the Platforms
 Fund Journalism Publicly
 Low-cost per-story subscription
72

80
NB: Number of
Publicly (3)
owned v.
Investment (7)
and Private (15).

Newspapers is nearing extinction. Key driving factors:
• Economic growth
practices
87

The current form of newspapers is nearing extinction. Key
driving factors:
• Economic growth
practices
88
Failure to invest.
Little continuing research,
experimentation and training
of ALL personnel related to
journalistic endeavors.

TOTAL Baltimore Sun Classified
93
https://www.saveourbaltimoresun.com/

 Gannett’s Ithaca Journal, local news staffing is
down to one reporter
94

 Twitter is testing new ways to fight misinformation —
including a community-based points system
A leaked demo features bright red and orange badges for tweets that are
deemed "harmfully misleading."A
 Not a new issue.
“Ethical issues for IT security professionals”
Computerworld, Aug. 2, 2005.
95

Important point
The document
is not
the data.
Without analysis,
the data are
not the
story.
96

Seeking niche in the Long Tail
Jeff Shell, head of Comcast Corp’s
NBCUniversal. “…he wants to explore making
prime-time CNBC a destination for centrist
and libertarian viewers, creating a clear
counter point to MSNBC…and to Fox News….”

231 ways publishers can make media pay
103
https://whatsnewinpublishing.com/
231-ways-publishers-can-make-
media-pay/

106
Producer Price Index by
Commodity for Pulp,
Paper, and Allied
Products: Newsprint

108
What data is displayed?
See you in
11:08
minutes

 Over the previous 15 years, more than one-fourth of the country’s
newspapers have disappeared, with 300 newspapers closing in the past two
years alone.
 Around 1,300–1,400 communities that had their own newspapers in 2004
now have no news coverage. Close to half of all counties — 1,540 — only
have one newspaper, usually a weekly. Almost 200 counties in the country
have no newspaper at all.
 Newsroom employment at U.S. newspapers (including local titles) dropped
by nearly half (47%) between 2008 and 2018, from about 71,000 workers to
38,000.
 Yet at the same time, based on 2019 research of 100 randomly sampled
communities across the U.S., newspapers remain the largest source of
original local journalism.
112

115
February 1939: Rows of U.S. dailies from around the
country at a Times Square newsstand, New York City.

Presentation Tools
 PowerPoint Presentation Mode
 Using ZOOM to record PPT –
 New Meeting. Join with Computer Audio. Join Audio. Show Camera (direct cam feature)
to add Virt Bkgd. Chose VirtBkgd. Select desired. Go to Share screen. (Doesn’t show
switching to/fro share screen_Can go to “Portion of screen.” Click on New
Share/Advanced/PortionOfScreen/DragOrangeBorder
(ReleaseTurnGreen/ClickCornerForSize)—Go to More for Record. See RedButton
meaning recording. End. Upload for conversion. ZOOM email with link for transcript.

 Imaginary Teleprompter for video recording
https://sourceforge.net/projects/teleprompter-imaginary-films/
 Telestream.net maybe
 Panopto for AV recording and editing/merging segments audio and slide
videos.

Report for America Funding
119

Nonvoters’s media consumption
120
 Non-voters and voters are both more likely to feel more
knowledgeable about national affairs than about what’s
happening in their local communities.
 The “nationally knowledgeable” members of both groups
are more likely to say they’ll vote in the fall;
less likely… to be civically engaged in their local
communities.

3.8 billion Global Social Media Users
125

Death (or Live?) of American Journalism-Part 2

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Death (or Live?) of American Journalism-Part 2