There’s no doubt newspapers are cutting back on business reporting, original international reporting and features reporting (especially reviews), and the Summer of Layoffs is certainly in full swing.
But even with the bad news and falling stock prices, newspaper editors feel torn, according to “The Changing Newsroom: Gains and Losses in Today's Papers,” from the Project for Excellence in Journalism.
The changes that come with the Web and other new technologies are exciting but scary. “Editors feel torn between the advantages the Web offers and the energy it consumes to produce material often of limited or even questionable value. A plurality of editors (48 percent), for instance, say they are conflicted by the trade-offs between the speed, depth and interactivity of the Web and what those benefits are costing in terms of accuracy and journalistic standards,” according to the research. “A slightly smaller percentage (43 percent) thinks ‘Web technology offers the potential for greater-than-ever journalism and will be the savior of what we once thought of as newspaper newsrooms.’”
New job requirements are drawing in younger journalists, but older journalists (and their institutional knowledge) are leaving. “Newsroom executives say the infusion of new blood has brought with it a new competitive energy, but they also cite the departure of veteran journalists, along with the talent, wisdom and institutional memory they hold as their single greatest loss.”
There are fewer reporters and fewer editors at many newspapers to write stories and catch any errors, but more than half of those surveyed (56 percent) “think their news product is better than it was three years earlier.”
PEJ’s study was based on interviews at newspapers in 15 cities and a survey of senior news executives from 259 newspapers. PEJ reported better than 1 in 5 U.S. daily newspapers participated in some way. PEJ and Princeton Survey Research Associates conducted the study in the first quarter of this year.
The Digital Influence
In a section on “The Influence of the Web,” researchers found the Web is the second biggest influencer on newsroom culture – behind, of course, financial pressures
“Editor’s responses indicated, often with a sense of surprise, that the growth of newspaper Web sites has also had a positive impact on the content of the newspaper itself. Interviews and survey results strongly indicated that — contrary to early conventional wisdom — the print and Web site versions of today’s daily newspapers can be complementary and mutually strengthening,” PEJ reported. Still, nearly half (48 percent) of the study’s respondents said they felt “conflicted” about the Web – 5 percent more than those who said they were “excited” about it.
Regardless of how newspaper editors feel about the Web, there’s no doubt multimedia skills are of the utmost importance. Predictably, 100 percent of respondents said “writing skills” are essential. Ninety-six percent of editors said “overall computer skills” are essential, and 90 percent said “multimedia skills” are key.
Required skills aren’t all that’s changing. It was long true that journalists rarely arrived at work before 9 a.m. However, the PEJ study found an increasing percentage of newspapers are adding “early” teams to cover breaking news that happens just hours after the print newspaper hits the driveway.
Along with new hours, the Web has also spurred new jobs – especially online newspaper videographers and mobile journalists who work primary in the field and spend less and less time at their “desks.” The majority of newspaper editors included in this study said mojos make very positive contributions to the newspaper.
“More than three-quarters (78 percent) of those editors in newsrooms where reporters had been trained to shoot and file video footage from a remote location said they found “Mo Jo’s” contributed either ’some’ or ‘a great deal’ of value to the news product. Among editors of larger newspapers, the positive response was even higher at 90 percent,” according to PEJ.
In addition to mobile journalists, staff-written blogs, online video and other Web elements will be fundamental as the newspaper continues its forward move into the digital media age. PEJ reported, “A growing number of publishers and editors, having concluded the era of print newspaper domination has ended, now believe the future of their newsroom depends on how well they can do two things: (1) Establish themselves as strong, relevant Web content providers for a generation of online news consumers; and (2) Maintain relevant, compelling content for the newspaper’s print edition that remains the industry’s primary, albeit diminished, cash cow.”
The full report is available at journalism.org, the Web site of PEJ.