Old, New Media — Together on to the Next

San Francisco Chronicle’s Joe Garofoli wrote a story based on the 4th edition of “The State of the News Media.”  These types of research reports are nobel because they get the attention of business, political and leaders of other establishments.  But this discussion and every item below has been bouncing around for years.  And during that time, social media has had time and space to grown and become important in people’s lives.  Why not synergize, or have both generations work together.  Maybe we don’t have to pass a torch from old generation to the new generations.  Maybe the best of both is what will dfine all of the the next generations to come.

For me, here’s the core of the report:  There is no vision yet…sounds like an opportunity.  There are lots of great voices out there — maybe no clear leaders but some pretty good influencers — and now’s the time to listen and reply to help the best rise to the top.

In nearly every sector except ethnic news, audiences are splintering off to many other media options. Even Fox News, which has come to dominate cable news in recent years, is showing a viewership decline, according to the report.

The report says, “No clear models of how to do journalism online really exist yet, and some qualities are still only marginally explored.”

Media outlets and advertisers often disagree on how to measure the amount of news the audience is consuming and where it is flitting to online.

Electronic media are in transition from the “Argument Culture,” epitomized by the canceled CNN shoutfest “Crossfire,” to the “Answer Culture,” exemplified by the branded persona of CNN anchor Anderson Cooper and the exposure of child predators by NBC’s “Dateline.”

The blogosphere is evolving, too, “splintering into elites and nonelites over standards and ethics,” the report said. Some bloggers are joining mainstream media outlets and political campaigns, and corporations are beginning to covertly use blogs to market their products.  “The paradox of professionalizing the medium to preserve its integrity is the start of a complicated new era in the evolution of the blogosphere,” the report says.

A danger lurks behind journalism‘s “shrinking ambitions.” Basic monitoring of local and regional government is suffering, it says.

Print outlets realize where their readers are going — online, mostly, and occasionally to their own news Web sites. And judging by the people joining the public news conversation on blogs and elsewhere, they have seen that there remains a thirst for news.

Traditional and new media have to figure out how to turn all those eyeballs into money.

Full article here: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/03/12/MNGV1OJHEA1.DTL&hw=study+finds+journalism&sn=004&sc=504