State of the News Media

Not surprisingly, the death of Michael Jackson was the dominant story in the news media last week. The Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism found Jackson's death made up 17% of the newshole, but accounted for 30% of the airtime on network news and 28% on cable news. As the graph shows, the morning shows devoted 56% of their airtime to Jackson, compared with 20% in the evening.

The second-biggest story last week was the ongoing economic crisis followed by Iraq, as U.S. troops withdrew from key cities. The 6% coverage of the war in Iraq was the highest level of coverage for that story in all of 2009.

More details here...

Politico's Patrick Gavin is covering the Ideas Festival at the Aspen Institute this week. During a panel last night, a group of old media types discussed — what else — the future of journalism. The panel included the Institute's president/former CNN president Walter Isaacson, ABC News president David Westin, and Washington Post scion Katharine Weymouth.

"The most important thing is, if you do journalism that people really want, you can find a way to get paid for it," said Westin.

Westin also talked about the newsgathering model of multiple crews covering the same story, using ABC's coverage of Hurricane Gustav as an example:

Basically, news organizations have had a strategy of covering the same news that everyone else does but trying to do it better. That strategy is no longer a successful one.

We spent over a million dollars and sent 20 people [to cover Gustav]. And to be honest, we could have played the same footage from the last hurricane and no one would have noticed.

Hurricane Gustav as it approached the Gulf Coast last August. The storm made landfall on Sept. 1 near Cocodrie, Louisiana.

MediaJobsDaily writes about the results of a Radio-Television News Directors Association (RTNDA)/Hofstra University study about local television news. One stat: jobs dropped by 4.3% and salaries by 4.4% in 2008, while networks set records for the amount of news on the air:



• Related: TV Week's Josef Adalian on cable news: "Viewers are turning to the Internet for news because it's become almost impossible to find actual news on TV."

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A snapshot of the PEJ analysis of the state of Cable News in 2008. There is much more information here.

• CNN, Fox News and MSNBC all gained viewers, were projected to see record profits, and expected to increase spending on newsgathering and bureaus around the world.

• The talk show format that dominated cable's prime time became even more ideologically polarized, Fox News hewing right, MSNBC left, and CNN coming closer in tone to the media elsewhere.

• MSNBC solidified its niche as a left-leaning alternative to the conservative Fox News Channel, adding Air America radio talker Rachel Maddow to a prime-time lineup that already showcased the liberal politics of "Countdown" host Keith Olbermann.

• Fox News coverage of the candidates was in many ways the reverse of MSNBC's. It was far more likely to air negative stories or segments about Obama than the media over all (43% vs. 27%), and much less likely to run positive ones (24% vs. 38%).

• On CNN-with a reputation for having the most reporting resources of the three cable networks-39% of the airtime studied last year was spent on packaged reported pieces. That is another measure establishing that viewers are getting more reporting and less talk there.

The Project for Excellence in Journalism released its annual report on the state of the news media. The PEJ looks into several areas including newspapers, magazines, online, audio and ethnic press. We'll dissect their reports on network and cable TV news.

Broadcast News

• Audience numbers continued to fall during the year, both for morning and evening, but more slowly than in the past.

• The programs faring best on the networks, among them NBC's Nightly News and CBS' 60 Minutes, share something in approach, a seriousness of purpose, a sense of responsibility and a confidence that the significant can be made interesting.

• The commercial network news divisions now compete with three clear disadvantages:

— Their economic model (advertising only) significantly hinders them compared with cable television (advertising & subscription fees).

— Many in network news feel a strong sense of tradition and responsibility, but there is an air to it of greatness that is past rather than ahead.

— They offer their news at prescribed hours on programs of defined duration in an age when consumers increasingly want news on demand.

• If the network news divisions are to move beyond broadcast television to thrive, it is clearer to see how NBC might succeed. But while CNBC and the Weather Channel are clearer fits, the MSNBC brand on cable is now increasingly built around opinion.

Rachel Sklar, formerly of The Huffington Post and now of Abrams Research, takes a look back at '08 (and a look forward) in a column on The Daily Beast.

One area is the African American media landscape. "Considering what a watershed year it was racially, surprisingly few new African-American stars emerged," she writes. "The networks relied, for the most part, on the names they already knew...If 2009 isn't the year of the black media star, then we are all doing something wrong."

And with the Obama-media correlation, there's also one regarding Clinton and the media. "We are so not ready for a female president. By 'we' I mean the media, whose stunning mishandling of the gender politics of the 2008 race meant that no one would even admit there might be a sexism problem until it was too late for Hillary Clinton — and just in time for Sarah Palin," writes Sklar.

Other topics discussed include two undercovered (or "undernews") areas — the war in Iraq and John Edwards.

Remember voting? That was exciting. Let's channel all the voting that took place this year and make your voices heard regarding some 2009 TV news predictions. Voting closes January 7. Happy New Year, and see you in '09:











And three repeats from last year:

If you haven't voted yet... here's your chance:

From a Matt Lauer tease to a disturbing Glenn Beck video (and his new place of employment). From what David Shuster said on-air to what Jesse Jackson said off-air, here are the top 10 TVNewser stories, by page view, from 2008.

And since it's the holiday season, we included a little thank you in parentheses to the sites that made these page views possible.

1. January 4 — Beck Surgery Goes Horribly Awry — 907,286 (Drudge)

2. July 16 — Breaking: What Else Jesse Jackson Said on That FNC Tape — 366,611 (Drudge)

3. February 8 — Shuster Suspended For Pimped Out Comment — 334,182 (Drudge)

4. January 28 — Clinton Cancels on the Cablers — 214,524 (Drudge)

5. October 16 — Glenn Beck To Join Fox News Channel — 167,721 (Glennbeck.com)

6. May 28 — May Ratings: FNC Stays on Top — 76,480 (Drudge)

7. May 27 — Couric to Make Major Announcement on Today — 60,999 (Drudge)

8. November 23, 2007 — Glenn Beck's Road Ahead: "A Doctor Told Me, 'You Keep Treating Your Body Like This, You'll Be Dead in 6 Months'" — 57,060 (TVNewser link from #1)

9. March 15 — Laurie Dhue Leaves FNC — 47,113 (Fark, HotAir)

10. February 8 — "Pimped Out" Comment Could Jeopardize Dem Debate on MSNBC — 46,892 (TVNewser link from #3)

• TVNewser's Top 10 of 2007

Last year at this time we brought you the 2008 TVNewser Challenge — eight questions about what will happen in the coming year. With more than 25,000 total votes cast, the results were set. In a year of some sketchy predicting ability by the "experts," how did you do with your predictions?

• In the closest vote of the Challenge, 47.83% of you thought NBC Nightly News would finish first while 47.60% thought it would be ABC. In the end, although it was close, the NBC's have it.

• None of our five choices left the anchor chair during 2008; in fact, two got a contract extension. Maybe we should have put Alan Colmes in.

• We asked whether the Today show would "maintain its dominance" or "lose ground to GMA." 49.29% of you thought "Today" would maintain its dominance while while 37.63% thought the program would lose ground. In fact, the "Today" show had a very strong 2008 consistently beating second place GMA by more than a million viewers. The Total Viewer gap increased from 13% (616,000) in 2007 to 26% (1,134,000) in 2008.

• 71.34% of you were right that Shepard Smith will continue what he's doing (but in a new studio) at 7pmET.

• Despite a big push by Nancy Grace in December, 45.42% had it right that Campbell Brown's 8pmET show on CNN would finish #3 in the time slot.

• The cable news show most likely to be canceled was a runaway in the voting, and the majority got it right: 57.67% of you thought it would be "Tucker" and an additional 10.19% were sort of right about CNBC's "The Big Idea." (Shelved, not canceled.)

• Then there's Fox Business Network. 52.46% thought the new net would not be close to CNBC in the ratings, and although that's somewhat vague, it's probably closer to the truth than "competitive with CNBC." So we'll keep an eye after year two.

• The Weekend Today anchor race was decided, by not being decided. We asked who would be the co-anchor with Lester Holt: 34.4% said it would be Amy Robach, 31.67% said Jenna Wolfe and 33.92% voted "Neither." In the end nothing has changed — Robach anchors Saturday, Wolfe on Sunday. Should we vote again?

Which brings us to 2009.

Later today — The 2009 TVNewser Challenge!