Good News: Not All Newspapers Are Tanking

 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Citing a Pew Research Center study released yesterday entitled Newspapers Turning Ideas into Dollars: Four Revenue Success Stories, the Columbia Journalism Review brightened the day for ink-stained wretches everywhere by reporting on four daily newspapers actually turning a profit.

The Naples (Fla.) Daily News [circ. 44,876], Santa Rosa (Calif.) Press Democrat [circ. 53,292], The (Salt Lake City) Deseret News [circ. 91,638] and The Columbia (Tenn.) Daily Herald [circ. 12,744] followed different paths to operating in the black, but all displayed "real leadership, ability to communicate that vision and commitment to editorial quality," Pew Associate Director Mark Jurkowitz told CJR.

Revenue grew the past two years at the Naples Daily News after its sales force was overhauled, while the Santa Rosa Press Democrat launched Media Lab, a digital agency providing online marketing services, the Pew study revealed. A half-dozen revenue-boosting ideas were rolled out by the Columbia Daily Herald, and the Deseret News owes its profitability to producing a national print edition, honing its editorial identity and creating a digital company, according to the Pew study.

The ever-sunny "TUOL" staff is delighted to report that not all the economic news concerning the newspaper industry is bleak--just most of it.

Adults Love Local News

(Photo credit: Knight Foundation)A phone survey of more than 2,200 adults last January found 72 percent of the adults polled relied on local newspapers to satisfy their craving for local information.

The study by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism and Internet & American Life Project, backed by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, which has a 2 percent margin of error, gauged how respondents obtained information about 16 topics, ranging from crime news and school information to weather reports.

The results, reported on www.PewInternet.org, found 32 percent of adults conceding the absence of their local paper would have a major impact on their lives, a number that jumped to 35 percent among adult respondents age 40 and older. The survey was conducted both on cell phones and landlines.

Wrinkled Facebook?

Image via CrunchBaseAdam Hochberg had an interesting article today citing a new survey by the Pew Internet and American Life Project that found seniors age 74 and older are among the fastest growing demographic group on social network sites, including Facebook and LinkedIn.

The Pew study concluded 16 percent of Internet users in that elderly age group visit social media sites, compared to only 4 percent of Web users 74 and older who were devotees in 2008. Further evidence of increased senior Web surfing, according to Hochberg, is found on the Facebook page of  AARP (formerly, the American Association of Retired Persons), which boasts more than 20,000 followers and a recently enhanced Web site that is social networking-friendly.

Apparently, the AARP site hosts more than 900 discussion groups, though "TUOL" wonders if it's actually just one discussion group that members keep forgetting they've already created. The news isn't all good for online "oldies" as the eons.com networking site, that was specifically created for those age 46 and older, recently jettisoned most of its staff.

UnSunny Side of the Tweet: Survey Finds Public Is Unsocial Media

Image via CrunchBaseThe Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project found a paltry 8 percent of Americans who surf the Internet use social network & microblogger Twitter.

Surveys conducted in October and November by Princeton Survey Research Associates International determined that minority Internet users were twice as likely as white Web surfers to tweet. Likewise, urbanites are more avid Twitter users than their rural counterparts.

"TUOL" is happy to boil down the survey results for committed Twitter users: "Y U Tweet? No 1 Cares. LOL."

News-Hungry Americans Lack Appetite for Newspapers

Image by eszter via FlickrTwenty-six percent of Americans thumbed through a newspaper yesterday, and only 8 percent of them were under age 30.


That grim disclosure for lovers of broadsheets and tabloids was among the findings culled from a Pew Research Center for People & the Press survey reported by trade publication Editor & Publisher. Forty-four percent of the respondents polled by Pew sought news through the Internet, cell phones, Email, social media or podcasts.


The 26 percent who opted to hold a newspaper in their hands is down from the 38 percent who admitted to doing so in Pew's 2006 survey.  On the positive side of the ledger, the latest poll found news consumption among Americans the highest that it's been in the best decade. If so, "TUOL" wants to know why 20 percent of Americans believe President Obama is a Muslim and why only 28 percent of people polled by Pew could identify John Roberts as Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Pew Poll: Journalism Headed in Wrong Direction

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Hardly Pollyannaish in the best of times, print and broadcast journalists polled recently by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism reflect a particularly bleak outlook toward their profession, The New York Times reports.

More than 350 journalists from the American Society of News Editors and the Radio Television Digital News Assn. responded to the poll conducted last December and January. Of the print journalists queried, 48 percent believe their news organizations will become insolvent within a decade barring a major infusion of income. Roughly 18 percent of  print editors polled said their publications are activelyconsidering charging readers for access to Web site content and another 58 percent said the notion is on their employers' radar.

Fifty-eight percent of the poll participants contend that journalism is headed in the wrong direction. Broadcast journalists weighed in with reasons for the decline, including unreasonably high profit margin expectations among media owners and a slow response by traditional media to invest in the Internet.

Despite the grim state of affairs, nearly three-quarters of the journalists who responded to the poll oppose direct government or interest-group financial support of their institutions.

Pew Study: Online News Trumps Newspapers; Trails TV

Image via Wikipedia

BBC News cites a  recent study by the Pew Research Center that finds more people getting their news from online news aggregators and news Web sites than from newspapers.

Regular readers of newspapers, according to the Pew study, have dropped to 50 percent.  Meanwhile, online news, whether from aggregators such as Google News and AOL, or Web sites such as BBC.com and CNN, is the third most popular source of news, but still lagging behind local and national tv stations. Seventy-eight percent of those queried say they get their daily news from local tv, compared to 71 percent from national networks and cable channels, such as CNN and Fox, while 61 percent look online for news reports. Radio news is a resource tapped by 54 percent of those polled.

The Pew survey also noted that 90 percent of respondents get their news from more than one medium and 57 percent claimed they consult two to five Web sites daily for their news.