Anticipating change
As cuts in newspaper staffs at major outlets, such as The New York Times and the LA Times, are making headlines of their own, editors and reporters recognize that there are many changes still to come.
More than two-thirds (67.3%) of respondents from newspapers anticipate print circulation declines and increased focus on the Web at their publications over the next three years, while 41.1% expect a shift in staffing from print to online. Additionally, 39.7% of print magazine journalists expect circulation declines and Web growth and 24.2% a shift in staff to online activities. Yet 38.2% of newspaper staffers expect a reduction in staff over the next three years, while only 9.4% of magazine journalists do.
However, one response in particular - 63.5% of print magazine or newspaper journalists saying their publication will continue "indefinitely" in its current state - surprises Armon.
"[It's] more of an optimism than I would have expected about the life expectancy of publications and mainstream media outlets. It was encouraging to see journalists feeling that there is a place for their publications, that their employers aren't going out of business anytime soon," he says. "It was good to see [journalists] were still more committed to their jobs and their professions and they think there is a bright future - or at least a future."
Many reporters are still slow to embrace blogging, even though it provides an opportunity to enhance their job skills, says Greg Hernandez, staff writer and blogger at the Los Angeles Daily News. Indeed, only 22.1% of respondents report writing a blog for their traditional outlet.
"I think overall there were some early adopters, people who did embrace it early on," he notes. "And maybe they were more online-savvy and [saw] how their lives were moving in this direction and they realized that. But I think some journalists who had been around a long time... resented any new work.
"[Moving to the Web] really requires more work out of everyone," adds Hernandez. "People resented [being asked to do] more work for the same pay. They weren't grasping that the survival of the business and the publications were at stake and [that] if they couldn't step up, there might not have been room for them in the business."
Blogs: bane or boon
Some traditional reporters and editors might blame bloggers and other new-media pioneers for the newspaper industry's financial troubles, which have resulted in thousands of layoffs. Yet some bloggers contend that nontraditional Web sites are actually allies to major news organizations.
Even if bloggers wanted to unite in order to push the mainstream media into the information dustbin, they would not be successful, due to the established reputation of many newspapers, says Paul Kiel, reporter/blogger at Talking Points Memo, a blog that recently won a George Polk Award for its reporting on the possibly politically motivated firings of US attorneys.
"We push a lot of traffic toward The New York Times and The Washington Post, and our readers are complete political junkies," he explains. "So the idea that people are reading us and not the Times seems pretty absurd to me. We're a competitor in the sense that we're trying to get stories before [they do], but it's also a situation where I don't think we're taking readers from [them]. The Times and the Post are such unique newspapers - they're institutions in a way - and I don't think they can be driven out in the short term."
And as many newspaper and magazine Web sites begin to resemble large blogs or newsletters - complete with post-story comment sections - the definition of who is a journalist is blurring, says Armon.
"What we're seeing here is the differentiation between blogger and journalist disappearing rapidly," he says. "The idea of claiming that journalists are second-rate because they're not accredited by some government entity is hogwash. If they have the audience, and they have the original content, then who's to say that they're not journalists?"
Yet the survey indicates that bloggers themselves oppose joining the journalist ranks. More than half (53.2%) do not consider themselves journalists, although just over one-half (50.6%) of bloggers had previously worked for a traditional publication. When asked if they expect to work for a large media company someday, 55.7% of bloggers say no, while 74.7% say they don't expect their blog to be acquired by a media company.
Matthew Cerrone, the owner and operator of MetsBlog, quit his job at a small PR shop two years ago to run his baseball fan site full time. Yet despite working a full schedule, sometimes competing for scoops with New York-based sports reporters, he does not consider himself a journalist - even if many of his readers expect him to be one.
"I think there are expectations of me as a writer, but I think people forget that I am just blogging my experience as a baseball fan," he explains. "If I happen to relay stories, or if I relay my experience sitting on a couch throughout a game or talking with a former player over the phone, so be it. Sometimes I'm just blogging my experience."