Tom Forenski on Old & New media.

Interesting article by Tom Forenski on Zdnet.com:

Citizen journalism does have an important place in the mediasphere but it cannot replace our need for professional journalists. And the funding for such media professionals is disappearing at a faster rate as the new media companies ramp up ever more efficient advertising/marketing services. [...] what happens if the old media dies before the new media learns to walk?

I think that most of us in PR completely agree with the need for professional journalists but at the same time we also understand that we need to learn how to interact with citizen journalists and bloggers.

Could the old media die so fast ?

According to an article by Frank Ahrens on Whashingtonpost.com "daily circulation across the industry has declined every year since 1987; Sunday editions, since 1990. The Washington Post, for instance, has watched its average daily circulation drop from 779,898 to 709,500 in the past five years."

I can't believe that this industry is dying.. Struggling yes but then that's normal for an "old industry" to be shaken up by the internet evolution.

Figuring out how to integrate all the potential of the web into an organization/industry that hasn't really changed for more than 50 years is always a slow process. I have seen it take more than 10 years in other industries and hey, let's be honest, the PR industry is just now starting to discover the web.

But of course, it always comes down to $:

"The good news for newspaper Web sites is that, after the 2001 dot-com crash, Internet advertising has roared back, exceeding previous highs. Total Internet ad spending in the first six months of 2004 was 40 percent higher than in the comparable period in 2003, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau. The sobering news? Internet advertising still accounts for only about 3 percent of total ad spending each year."

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