The Project for Excellence in Journalism's annual report, http://www.stateofthenewsmedia.org/2008/, will take some digesting.
Here's AP's summary, via Wired:
The Internet has profoundly changed journalism,
but not necessarily in ways that were predicted even a few years ago, a
study on the industry released Sunday found. It
was believed at one point that the Net would democratize the media,
offering many new voices, stories and perspectives. Yet the news agenda
actually seems to be narrowing, with many Web sites primarily packaging
news that is produced elsewhere, according to the Project for
Excellence in Journalism's annual State of the News Media report. The executive summary alone is a 26 page PDF. Here's how it begins (emphasis added):
The state of the American news media in 2008 is more troubled than a year ago. And the problems, increasingly, appear to be different than many experts have predicted.
Critics have tended to see technology democratizing the media and traditional journalism in decline. Audiences, they say, are fragmenting across new information sources, breaking the grip of media elites. Some people even advocate the notion of "The Long Tail," the idea that, with the Web's infinite potential for depth, millions of niche markets could be bigger than the old mass market dominated by large companies and producers.
The reality, increasingly, appears more complex. Looking closely, a clear case for democratization is harder to make. Even with so many new sources, more people now consume what old-media newsrooms produce, particularly from print, than before. Online, for instance, the top 10 news Web sites, drawing mostly from old brands, are more of an oligarchy, commanding a larger share of audience than they did in the legacy media. The verdict on citizen media for now suggests limitations. And research shows blogs and public affairs Web sites attract a smaller audience than expected and are produced by people with even more elite backgrounds than journalists.
The report itself has detailed sections on newspapers, online, network TV, cable TV, local TV, magazines, radio and ethnic media, each with its own introduction, content analysis and observations on audience, economics, ownership and more. With all that great research documentation and explorable data to learn from, what are the odds that I can get my Media & Society class to digest it all for me? We'll see...
1:15:44 PM 
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