The report State of the News Media 2006 is out and it identifies six major trends:
– The new paradox of journalism is more outlets covering fewer stories.
– The species of newspaper that may be most threatened is the big-city metro paper that came to dominate in the latter part of the 20th century.
– At many old-media companies, though not all, the decades-long battle at the top between idealists and accountants is now over.
– That said, traditional media do appear to be moving toward technological innovation — finally.
– The new challengers to the old media, the aggregators, are also playing with limited time.
– The central economic question in journalism continues to be how long it will take online journalism to become a major economic engine, and if it will ever be as big as print or television.