Effects of the Internet on Mainstream Journalism

Associated Press Television Writer David Bauder published an interesting article on Wired.com this morning about the unexpected effects that the Internet has had on journalism as we know it.

A few of the findings that he noted which I found to be profoundly interesting were that,

“…citizen-created Web sites and blogs are actually far less welcoming to outside commentary than the so-called mainstream media.”

Hmmm, perhaps this is because some independent bloggers actually take offense to their readers offering opinions and commentary that contradicts their thinking. As someone who successfully enjoys blogging for extra income, I welcome commentators looking to refute my position on questionable topics, which leads me to question the validity of the findings published in that report.

This brings me back to a theory that I have about biases in reports published by mainstream journalists in regard to the effects of the Internet on the [mainstream media] outlets that sign their paychecks.

More often than not, I get the feeling that when reading articles like the one mentioned above that MSM (mainstream media) outlets like TV, radio and print newspaper are abandoning their positions as unbiased in order to protect the revenue they have traditionally garnered through non-Internet MSM sources. The fact is that Internet advertising sales and revenues have been growing at a rate of over 20% per year for the past 4 years.

Looking at a few other comparative stats courtesy of Henry Blodget and the alleyinsider.com:

• Online ad revenue grew 28%, from $14 billion to $18 billion [in 2007].

• Offline grew only 3%, from $39.5 billion to 40.6 billion. This was helped significantly by the inclusion of affiliate fees and (and global revenue) at CBS, Viacom, and News Corp.

• Online ad revenue grew by $4 billion.

• Offline ad revenue–in all other media–grew by $1 billion.

Financial stats courtesy of Eric Schonfeld at TechCrunch (numbers shown in ‘000s):

Feeling pressured by their employers, MSM outlets are choosing to downplay the fact that a majority of audiences would prefer to get their news from online sources than traditional mediums in an effort to convince advertisers that TV, print and radio advertising is still the way to go.

Here are some additional excerpts from the Annual Report on American Journalism (courtesy of aprilreign) to support this point.

Sadly, advertisers who choose to ignore the research and continue to pump advertising dollars into mediums with declining audiences are the ones on the losing end of this proposition. Of course, for those who understand the dynamics of the changes in the advertising industry landscape, what lies ahead is a tremendous consulting opportunity for educating business owners in the benefits of moving their advertising budgets away from MSM and into web based campaigns that will yield greater exposure to more targeted audiences.

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