Pew Research Center for the People and the Press reported in July 2006 that on an average day, 81% of Americans accessed news. Some 57% of Americans watched TV news, of which 54% watched the local news. Only 28% watched the nightly network news. On a typical day, 40% of Americans read a newspaper with 36% listening to news on the radio and 23% getting news online.
'American Journalism Review' reported in November 1994, "Prime time newsmagazines like '48 Hours', 'Turning Point' and 'Dateline NBC', have replaced the evening newscasts as the centerpiece of the networks' news divisions." At the start of the 1993-94 season, '48 Hours' and 'Turning Point' were both on at the same time on Wednesday at 10pm against 'Law & Order'. On Thursday, 'PrimeTime Live' and 'Eye To Eye' were both on at the same time against 'ER'.
Howard Stringer told 'The New York Times', "The saddest thing of all is what the competition has done to these shows. When I created '48 Hours,' it was to do the big story of the week. We might have done the Israeli bomb story last week. Now you are really forced to push for tabloid subjects for all these competitive reasons. You wind up with pop psychology, pop culture, journo-pop, instead of real news."
Steve Sternberg advised advertisers on which shows to sponsor made the observation, "When you have really good entertainment shows that people want to watch, the newsmagazines are going to decline." However by canceling programs such as 'Day One', David F. Poltrack of CBS believed, "That creates its own Catch-22. If you drop out of the competition where two shows are on head-to-head, you risk creating a permanent franchise for the show left by itself against two dramas. You really are trapped."
The valuable demographic was adults 18-49. However CBS was generally stronger in the 25-54 bracket.
Speaking to the 'Frontline' program on PBS in 2007, (topic News War), Ted Koppel stated, "Simply passing on rumors is not journalism. Simply telling people what you think they want to hear is not journalism. To the extent that we're now judging journalism by the same standards that we apply to entertainment - in other words, give the public what it wants, not necessarily what it ought to hear, what it ought to see, what it needs, but what it wants - that may prove to be one of the greatest tragedies in the history of American journalism."
On reflection, David Westin remarked, "The standard (of news) has changed, and it's broadened, not lowered, because I will find you what you would perceive as a noble, serious news piece to match every one of the examples that you pick out of what you find ignoble. So it's broadened, not lowered, but it's changed. It's easy to oversimplify. You know, network news has just gone soft and it's because of a profit motive ... I think the soft/hard distinction is much harder than people would like to make it out to be."
Jeff Fager of '60 Minutes' told 'Frontline', "'Dateline', over the years, they've done tremendous pieces and excellent reporting. They've gone away from it more in recent years, and I think part of it is because it's expensive. It really has been hard to cover the news and cover the world. I used to run the '(CBS) Evening News', and I know that the budget I had to cover the news was a lot more.
"It was more significant than the 'Evening News' has today (in 2007). It makes it much more difficult … I don't think we've seen the model - I know we haven't seen the model for how broadcast journalism is going to end up on the Internet. But it has to go there. It has to. I mean, you don't see anybody between 20 and 30 getting their news from the evening news, you see them getting it online."
Scott Moore of 'Yahoo!' noted, "People that are consuming news or other information online do so in a mode that we refer to as 'info snacking'. So they'll read a piece or they'll read part of a piece, and then they'll see a link. They'll follow that link. They'll go read that thing. So by taking the content that we got from '60 Minutes' and chunking it into, you know, two to four-minute segments, we just gave a much richer experience.
"Jeff Fager, who runs the operation, is actually somewhat visionary, I think, at least for a big old-line broadcast news division, in terms of thinking about how to evolve the brand. They know that '60 Minutes', while it is a real crown jewel of American journalism as a brand and as a franchise - there's no question about that - but they know that their audience is, you know, 55 and up."
Andrew Baron created 'Rocketboom' made the point, "We never considered ourselves journalists or - I mean, I've never studied journalism at all and have never been interested in journalism or even really given it much thought. You know, I haven't thought through the kinds of things that journalists are supposed to think through. Nevertheless, the activity that we're doing, people are identifying it as acts of journalism. Whether it is or it isn't, it's creating a conversation about what is journalism.
"Currently, we have around, between 400,000 and 500,000 daily downloads of our videos. And if we have, like, a really exceptional episode or one that, you know, strikes a larger chord than normal, it could be up to a million. Most of the history of 'Rocketboom', we've used one camera and one laptop and two lights. And so each day, you know - having had those already laying around, you know, to start up, we really didn't need anything but just household stuff, like scissors and tape."
Will Lyman narrated the 'Frontline' program told viewers, "At the start of the Internet boom, NBC was the first to try to make the move onto the Internet. They partnered with Microsoft and confidently announced the beginning of a new era. There was a lot of excited talk about convergence, the idea that TV stations, Internet companies and newspapers would combine forces and create profitable new synergies.
"Ten years later, MSNBC survived the dot.com crash and is now the number two news site on the Web, close behind the leader, Yahoo! Scott Moore, who used to run MSNBC, is now the head of Yahoo! News. But Yahoo News depends primarily on the reporting of others, like the Associated Press and Reuters, which they pay for, unlike their rival, Google. Google's news site is popular, but it's essentially a collection of headlines and links to newspaper reporting."
Eric Schmidt of 'Google' clarified, "We made an explicit decision not to get into the content business. We decided explicitly to let many people produce content, and we would develop advertising solutions that would help pay for the new content that they're building. And that's our focus. There's no question that we depend critically upon reporters reporting new facts, new stories, new ideas. Who's going to write it, if it's not the reporters? And almost all interesting news seems to start from a reporter on a beat in a country uncovering something or reporting their observations about what they're seeing."
John Carroll, formerly of 'The Los Angeles Times' expressed, "I'd estimate that roughly 85% of the original reporting that gets done in America is done by newspapers. They're the people who are going out and knocking on doors and rummaging through records and covering events, and so on. And most of the other media that provide news to people are really recycling news that's gathered by newspapers.
"The Web opens up vast possibilities for good journalism and already has created many new voices that are valuable. I don't think we can turn this thing over entirely to bloggers and citizen journalists. They're valuable, but there are things they can't do. A typical newspaper makes a 20% operating margin. That's roughly double what the typical Fortune 500 company makes. People think of this as a poor, washed-up old business. It's not. It makes tons of money."
However Lauren Rich Fine of Merrill Lynch begged to differ, "Newspapers are not a growth business. The industry is under enormous financial pressure. Historically newspapers weren't objective. Historically they were all family-owned or locally owned, and that was why they existed, was to be very opinionated. It's why you had two newspapers in every town, to make sure you were getting both sides of an event or something going on … It's just amazing what you can do online. It's just better online. That's ultimately why the newspaper industry is under pressure. Classifieds are better online, period."
Eric Schmidt added, "One of the unintended negative consequences of online advertising has been the loss of value in traditional classifieds. It's really affected the economics of newspapers. No one has yet figured out a way to fill up all that money with a different source to help pay for the newspapers. We're, in fact, critically dependent upon the success of these newspapers. So anything that screws up their economics, that causes them to get rid of reporters, is a really bad thing. The fact of the matter is that the consumption for news is up, but the way in which people consume news has changed, and it's affected newspapers in a business sense pretty negatively."
Publisher Jeff Johnson maintained, "And you can't really prove that you sold more newspapers or sold more advertising as a result of good quality journalism." Larry Kramer, formerly of 'The Washington Post', insisted, "This is the chicken and egg problem. Do you do stories that, you know, taste good, or do you do stories that are good for you? And will people view and read stories that are good for you, or will they read the stories that taste good? It's a never-ending problem.
"I mean, I used to laugh. At 'The Washington Post', we'd have - every Sunday and many days of the week, we'd have a story that would start on the front page and - down in the corner - and it would be two columns wide and there'd be a headline. And then there'd be a jump, and you'd open up the page, and there'd be two pages on the inside on this story. And you go, 'Whoa!'
"But the reality is, most people didn't read all those stories. They wanted those stories to be there. But most importantly, they wanted to know that 'The Washington Post' was watching these institutions and was devoting the resources to see if they were - these people were being ripped off, if we, as the public, were being ripped off in a way that we could never find out ourselves. That's great journalism. That's still true. I still think people want those stories."
Peter Herford, formerly of CBS News, told 'American Journalism Review' in 1994, "It's absolutely true that newsmagazines, not the nightly newscasts, have become the primary business of the network news divisions. In fact, with the exception of ABC News (at the time), which is sitting atop the pile right now, I think CBS News and, to a certain extent, NBC News would be delighted to do something else with 6:30 to 7:00 or 7:00 to 7:30pm Monday through Fridays."
'American Journalism Review' continued, "Each of the Big Three networks would like to have a newsmagazine on at 10pm Monday through Friday as a lead-in to its affiliates' late local news. When 'ABC Monday Night Football' ends and 'Day One' rejoins the regular schedule in January (1995), ABC will be closest to that goal, with newsmagazines on Monday ('Turning Point'), Wednesday ('PrimeTime Live'), Thursday ('Day One') and Friday nights ('20/20')." Andrew Heyward of CBS acknowledged, "The 10 o'clock strip is a huge thing, an amazing phenomenon. The affiliates love it because it feeds a news-oriented audience into local news."
Jeff Fager of '60 Minutes' told 'Frontline', "'Dateline', over the years, they've done tremendous pieces and excellent reporting. They've gone away from it more in recent years, and I think part of it is because it's expensive. It really has been hard to cover the news and cover the world. I used to run the '(CBS) Evening News', and I know that the budget I had to cover the news was a lot more.
"It was more significant than the 'Evening News' has today (in 2007). It makes it much more difficult … I don't think we've seen the model - I know we haven't seen the model for how broadcast journalism is going to end up on the Internet. But it has to go there. It has to. I mean, you don't see anybody between 20 and 30 getting their news from the evening news, you see them getting it online."
Scott Moore of 'Yahoo!' noted, "People that are consuming news or other information online do so in a mode that we refer to as 'info snacking'. So they'll read a piece or they'll read part of a piece, and then they'll see a link. They'll follow that link. They'll go read that thing. So by taking the content that we got from '60 Minutes' and chunking it into, you know, two to four-minute segments, we just gave a much richer experience.
"Jeff Fager, who runs the operation, is actually somewhat visionary, I think, at least for a big old-line broadcast news division, in terms of thinking about how to evolve the brand. They know that '60 Minutes', while it is a real crown jewel of American journalism as a brand and as a franchise - there's no question about that - but they know that their audience is, you know, 55 and up."
Andrew Baron created 'Rocketboom' made the point, "We never considered ourselves journalists or - I mean, I've never studied journalism at all and have never been interested in journalism or even really given it much thought. You know, I haven't thought through the kinds of things that journalists are supposed to think through. Nevertheless, the activity that we're doing, people are identifying it as acts of journalism. Whether it is or it isn't, it's creating a conversation about what is journalism.
"Currently, we have around, between 400,000 and 500,000 daily downloads of our videos. And if we have, like, a really exceptional episode or one that, you know, strikes a larger chord than normal, it could be up to a million. Most of the history of 'Rocketboom', we've used one camera and one laptop and two lights. And so each day, you know - having had those already laying around, you know, to start up, we really didn't need anything but just household stuff, like scissors and tape."
Will Lyman narrated the 'Frontline' program told viewers, "At the start of the Internet boom, NBC was the first to try to make the move onto the Internet. They partnered with Microsoft and confidently announced the beginning of a new era. There was a lot of excited talk about convergence, the idea that TV stations, Internet companies and newspapers would combine forces and create profitable new synergies.
"Ten years later, MSNBC survived the dot.com crash and is now the number two news site on the Web, close behind the leader, Yahoo! Scott Moore, who used to run MSNBC, is now the head of Yahoo! News. But Yahoo News depends primarily on the reporting of others, like the Associated Press and Reuters, which they pay for, unlike their rival, Google. Google's news site is popular, but it's essentially a collection of headlines and links to newspaper reporting."
Eric Schmidt of 'Google' clarified, "We made an explicit decision not to get into the content business. We decided explicitly to let many people produce content, and we would develop advertising solutions that would help pay for the new content that they're building. And that's our focus. There's no question that we depend critically upon reporters reporting new facts, new stories, new ideas. Who's going to write it, if it's not the reporters? And almost all interesting news seems to start from a reporter on a beat in a country uncovering something or reporting their observations about what they're seeing."
John Carroll, formerly of 'The Los Angeles Times' expressed, "I'd estimate that roughly 85% of the original reporting that gets done in America is done by newspapers. They're the people who are going out and knocking on doors and rummaging through records and covering events, and so on. And most of the other media that provide news to people are really recycling news that's gathered by newspapers.
"The Web opens up vast possibilities for good journalism and already has created many new voices that are valuable. I don't think we can turn this thing over entirely to bloggers and citizen journalists. They're valuable, but there are things they can't do. A typical newspaper makes a 20% operating margin. That's roughly double what the typical Fortune 500 company makes. People think of this as a poor, washed-up old business. It's not. It makes tons of money."
However Lauren Rich Fine of Merrill Lynch begged to differ, "Newspapers are not a growth business. The industry is under enormous financial pressure. Historically newspapers weren't objective. Historically they were all family-owned or locally owned, and that was why they existed, was to be very opinionated. It's why you had two newspapers in every town, to make sure you were getting both sides of an event or something going on … It's just amazing what you can do online. It's just better online. That's ultimately why the newspaper industry is under pressure. Classifieds are better online, period."
Eric Schmidt added, "One of the unintended negative consequences of online advertising has been the loss of value in traditional classifieds. It's really affected the economics of newspapers. No one has yet figured out a way to fill up all that money with a different source to help pay for the newspapers. We're, in fact, critically dependent upon the success of these newspapers. So anything that screws up their economics, that causes them to get rid of reporters, is a really bad thing. The fact of the matter is that the consumption for news is up, but the way in which people consume news has changed, and it's affected newspapers in a business sense pretty negatively."
Publisher Jeff Johnson maintained, "And you can't really prove that you sold more newspapers or sold more advertising as a result of good quality journalism." Larry Kramer, formerly of 'The Washington Post', insisted, "This is the chicken and egg problem. Do you do stories that, you know, taste good, or do you do stories that are good for you? And will people view and read stories that are good for you, or will they read the stories that taste good? It's a never-ending problem.
"I mean, I used to laugh. At 'The Washington Post', we'd have - every Sunday and many days of the week, we'd have a story that would start on the front page and - down in the corner - and it would be two columns wide and there'd be a headline. And then there'd be a jump, and you'd open up the page, and there'd be two pages on the inside on this story. And you go, 'Whoa!'
"But the reality is, most people didn't read all those stories. They wanted those stories to be there. But most importantly, they wanted to know that 'The Washington Post' was watching these institutions and was devoting the resources to see if they were - these people were being ripped off, if we, as the public, were being ripped off in a way that we could never find out ourselves. That's great journalism. That's still true. I still think people want those stories."
Peter Herford, formerly of CBS News, told 'American Journalism Review' in 1994, "It's absolutely true that newsmagazines, not the nightly newscasts, have become the primary business of the network news divisions. In fact, with the exception of ABC News (at the time), which is sitting atop the pile right now, I think CBS News and, to a certain extent, NBC News would be delighted to do something else with 6:30 to 7:00 or 7:00 to 7:30pm Monday through Fridays."
'American Journalism Review' continued, "Each of the Big Three networks would like to have a newsmagazine on at 10pm Monday through Friday as a lead-in to its affiliates' late local news. When 'ABC Monday Night Football' ends and 'Day One' rejoins the regular schedule in January (1995), ABC will be closest to that goal, with newsmagazines on Monday ('Turning Point'), Wednesday ('PrimeTime Live'), Thursday ('Day One') and Friday nights ('20/20')." Andrew Heyward of CBS acknowledged, "The 10 o'clock strip is a huge thing, an amazing phenomenon. The affiliates love it because it feeds a news-oriented audience into local news."
