Study: Old media soon to be extinct

Old media is just that—old. I think it’s best described by Alan Mutter, who calls himself a “Newsosaur.” Television and newspapers will soon join Mutter in extinction. This extinction keeps getting closer, it seems, as more studies reveal the changing trends in how people get their news. As such, the only way for traditional outlets to thrive is they, unlike the dinosaurs, have to survive the giant meteor of new media.

A Pew study released Sunday shows that nearly half of Americans rely on people around them to find out the news. How? The study says 44 percent of online news users get it through e-mail, automatic updates or posts from social networking sites. It cites that Twitter exploded in 2009 with a monthly audience increase of 200 percent.

All of this undoubtedly is due to the increasing handheld world of mobile devices and the ability to instantly tweet, Facebook, and YouTube faster than any “old school” medium.
The most discussed topics, according to the study is politics, foreign events, economy, technology and health and medicine.
This is alarming to local, traditional media outlets whose numbers are slipping quickly and losing readers to local bloggers who use new media initiatives.

It also is important to note that the study states the users who spread news via new media platforms don’t seem to take sides on an issue.

“Each social media platform also seems to have its own personality and function. In the year studied, bloggers gravitated toward stories that elicited emotion, concerned individual or group rights or triggered ideological passion. Often these were stories that people could personalize and then share in the social forum—at times in highly partisan language. And unlike in some other types of media, the partisanship here does not lean strongly to one side or the other,” states the study.

This is vital since it is part of the reason mainstream news outlets are crumbling. People don’t want to hear slanted sides of the issue. They want to hear news and, if they’re interested, they’ll continue to dig (and maybe then find a side).

Granted, according to the study, it states that social media players/bloggers still rely on traditional media (and, it states, only the BBC, CNN, The New York Times and The Washington Post), but it’s more important to note that the instantaneousness of the new media wave (i.e. Twitter users) do not rely on those outlets.

This instant communication via Twitter accounts (and a more immediate method that may soon come either from a smart blogger or media socialite) is where people want to get their news first, then they will continue to look into the subject if they are interested.

Traditional media still does not embrace this. They rather would have a reporter leave a scene with a photographer, go back to the newsroom, write something up, edit it, send it to the next editor, put it online, then build it up for the next day’s paper. No good. Give it to me now. A story should first hit a Twitter account, then a blurb on Facebook, next get the photo up from a scene (via a laptop or phone), then get to a newsroom or your home and write something fast, put it up (maybe do a rewrite for the next day’s paper) and call it a good day’s work. Any other differentiation is not the new paradigm.

The conclusion of the study is very weak and is pretty much a “wait and see” attitude. That’s exactly what doesn’t work as media constantly changes. Too many traditional news outlets take this stance and are unwilling (and sometimes because of cash, unable) to make the move to embrace new media. The cash problem is understandable, but the answer to that problem is a direct result of changes with new media (for example, tags might be worth a try).

If news outlets continue to “wait and see,” it’s total annihilation. When? No one really knows. But, looking at the past two years, will traditional outlets be around in 10 years? Twenty years? Chances are unlikely. Ralph Martin, the president of Tribune Total Media, said in a May panel discussion that he wouldn’t let his young son enter this business.

Heck, I’ve always been told, “Out with the old, in with the new.”