Many months of speculation about the future of newspapers culminated in September 2006 with a front-page story by The Economist asking: “Who killed the newspaper?” To gain an insiders view of this morbid forecast, the World Editors Forum and Reuters launched an initiative to probe those most concerned: editors-in-chief, deputy editors and senior news executives.
One may have thought them to be morose, discouraged and overwhelmed by the evolution of technology, but in the first Newsroom Barometer - conducted by Zogby International - ever carried out, they proved to be just the opposite: 85% of senior news executives see a rosy future for their newspaper. They accept competition from online sources and free papers, and in turn are making efforts to adapt to the 21st century readership.
They know how to effectively transition towards online journalism without dismissing editorial quality. Fifteen years ago, selling newspapers was simply a matter of marketing. But editors-in-chief realize that content matters more than ever and cutting newsroom resources is not at all an effective solution: the redefinition of news will take place with journalists, not against them. These are just brief examples of what the 2007 Newsroom Barometer found. As the first international survey focused on newsroom strategies and morale, the Barometer aims to promote better knowledge of the evolution of the newspaper through the eyes of senior news executives from around the world. Every year, the survey will ask some of the same questions, in order to continue tracking the important shifts taking place in news organizations and newsrooms around the world.
In this era of rapid and accelerating change for journalism, the World Editors Forum believes that editors worldwide need sharp and focused information to help them do their jobs. Already this first global survey among newspaper news executives will help analysts and newspapers worldwide establish strategies in order to adapt to a transitional era in journalism.
This is a six-part analysis that recaps the survey’s main findings:
Read part 1 – Nobody has killed the newspaper
Read part 2 - How editors view emerging forms of journalism (free papers, citizen journalism, online journalism and more)
Read part 3 – How editors view their newspaper in 10 years
Read part 4 – Newsroom priorities, threats to editorial independence
Read part 5 – Who participated in the Newsroom Barometer?
Read part 6 – Newsroom Barometer: analysis by John Zogby and comment by Jeff Jarvis
WEF will continue to promote the Newsroom Barometer to improve upon the 435 editors worldwide who participated in 2007 and try to obtain answers more specific to separate geographic areas in 2008. The goal is to conduct a Newsroom Barometer every year, in order to compare and contrast the newspaper industry’s trends over a longer period of time.
Technically (see part 5), the World Editors Forum initially sent out a mailing to its database to make sure that the respondents were qualified to answer. Respondents answered the survey on the Zogby website between October 8 and December 7 2006. All respondents were editors-in-chief or senior news executives.
Overall, how optimistic are you about your newspaper’s future?
The survey found that:
- An overwhelming number of respondents say they are very optimistic (24%) or somewhat optimistic (61%) about the future of their newspaper. Even among newspapers whose circulation decreased over the past five years, 80% of respondents remain optimistic. It means that contrary to conventional wisdom and widespread doom-and-gloom predictions, senior news executives are overwhelmingly optimistic about the future of their newspaper.
- Forty-percent of editors and news executives believe online will be the most common platform for news ten years into the future, while 35% believe in print’s supremacy. One in ten say mobile devices will be the most common platform, while 7% cite e-paper. And two out of 10 respondents say it will be technologies that are still in the emerging stage.
- Half the respondents believe that journalistic quality will improve over the next 10 years, versus one-quarter who think it will worsen.
- Eight in ten respondents view online and new media as a welcome addition. Those with high volume web traffic — more than 200,000 unique visitors per day — are more likely to view new media positively, but the majority of editors at newspapers with modest traffic or no web sites also viewed new media positively.
- Three in ten respondents view free newspapers as a threat to the market, while the majority take a more benign view – 34% view them as a welcome addition, and 28% consider them negligible. Smaller newspapers are more likely to see free papers as a threat than larger newspapers, perhaps because larger newspapers have the resources to fight off free paper competition, as well as produce their own free papers.
- Respondents are almost evenly split over whether they think that the majority of news, both print and online, will be free in the future.
- Three-quarters of respondents view the trends toward increased interactivity between news organisations and their readers as positive for quality journalism, while only 8% take the negative view.
- Fifty-four percent of editors think shareholders and advertisers pose the principal threat in the future to editorial independence of newspapers. Nineteen percent of respondents, mostly from the developing world, cite political pressure as the main threat.
- Two-thirds of respondents say that the number of opinion and analysis pages will increase in coming years.
- Training journalists in new media is cited most often by editors as a priority to increase editorial quality. Hiring more journalists is the second most frequently cited priority.
For the full Newsroom Barometer results and commentary plus the complete, analytical guide to the monumental transformations taking place in the newspaper industry, please consult the print or PDF version of Trends in Newsrooms 2007 (http://www.trends-in-newsrooms.org/home.php), released 27th March 2007. From free papers to e-papers, citizen journalism to social media and integrated newsrooms to Internet aggregators, it has everything you need to know to direct your paper towards a multimedia future.
About the World Editors Forum
The Paris-based World Editors Forum is the organisation of the World Association of Newspapers that represents editors-in-chief and other senior news executives. WAN is the global organisation for the newspaper industry.
About Reuters
Reuters is the world’s largest international news and financial information source, reaching over 1 billion people a day. Founded in 1851, Reuters Group has 15,300 employees in 89 countries and had annual revenues of £2.4 billion/$4.4 billion in 2005. For more information and the latest news, visit www.reuters.com.
About Zogby International
Zogby International is a public opinion, research, and business solutions firm with experience operating in 65 countries around the globe. Zogby International specializes in telephone, Internet, and face-to-face survey research and analysis for political, corporate, non-profit, and governmental clients.
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