Once again, the future of journalism might seem grim to some
after the Newspaper Association of America (NAA) published its annual newspaper advertising statistics for 2011. The report shows that the print advertising
revenue went down 9.2 percent, but that digital advertising revenue grew 6.8
percent. The total advertising revenue went down by 7.3 percent. In fact, in a
recent report from The Huffington Post, the newspaper industry was number one
on a list called “America’s Ten Disappearing Industries.”
What this means for journalists is that, “If you want to be a journalist, think online,” as Matt Rosoff from Business Insider said. Rosoff
pointed out a LinkedIn article that explains that newspapers have shed the most jobs since 2007 than any other industry in the United States.
Robert Niles from the Online Journalism Review also
explained that the future of journalism education then should be to fulfill “the
growing need for instruction and guidance in profitable and community-building
communication in the growing online publishing media”. However, he said that unfortunately,
most universities are not doing this.
As the numbers and the data show, what this means is that
the focus for journalists should be in the digital world. As Indiana
University’s journalism professor Hans Peter Ibold explained, “The recent social media revolution is already fueling advances in journalism and better
ideas about how reporters can engage and accurately inform citizens.”
As I have stated before, there is no need to be alarmed
about the future of journalism. Journalists just need to adapt to the changes
in the field and take advantage of the new opportunities to communicate with
the public. If interested in how to learn more about journalists taking
advantage of using social media, here are a few helpful links:
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