There’s a lot of valuable data for corporate communicators to consider in the 2009 State of the News Media Report on American Journalism published by PEW Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. The report quantifies and analyzes America’s print, television, audio, and online news consumption. Special sections this year analyze election coverage, citizen-based media, and “new ventures.” (Arizonans, note that Arizonaguardian.com is featured in the new ventures section. )

Some points of interest, among many offered in the report include:

• PEW’s survey of Online News Association members indicates that 54% of members surveyed believe journalism is headed in the wrong direction, with only 39% very confident and 43% somewhat confident that a profitable online business model can be identified.
• The number of people either relying on the Web for news or considering it as a major source for news – as one might expect – increased over the past year. This, coupled with the recession, has further diminished already fading ad revenues based on legacy business models.
• The ubiquitous Web vision is playing out. Mainstream onlines have enhanced their content, and more subject-specific news sites have emerged to make online news even more appealing to the masses. (See PEW’s “New Ventures” section for subject-specific examples.)
• With a nod to digital evolution, the Radio section of the report is now referred to as “Audio,” and goes on to call Audio’s future one of “intriguing fragmentation.”
• Micro-blogs, namely Twitter, get special focus within the Online section of the report, with the November 2008 Mumbai hotel raids cited as an example of Twitter’s immediacy and ability to break and share news. 

It’s citizen journalism – via micro-blogs, blogs, and otherwise – that I currently find most fascinating. Citizen journalism is forcing redefinition and/or tightened focus of roles within professional communications. Anyone who is willing can now have a voice via the Web, so professionals need to more clearly add value to the communications process while also harnessing the best of what audience-generated content has to offer.

Some mediums are ignoring or sidestepping this, while others choose to embrace and leverage it. CNN’s iReport is a nice example of the latter. I like that iReport delineates between which audience-generated stories are used by CNN entities, which you’ll find here, and which are not. iReport also encourages reporting aptitude by offering story, photo, video and audio tips to users. Of course there are integrated Facebook and Twitter feeds, and also a weekly news program on CNN highlighting the most interesting iReports.

CNN’s approach is a subtle way of formalizing and activating what is otherwise informal word-of-mouth and community discussion; citizen journalists generally cite just one or no sources, per PEW’s data. And I’m not saying blogs, online communities, an individual’s Tweets, or geographic iReports are less valuable than mainstream news. They’re increasingly what makes the world of information turn ’round, so helping these individual news accounts find their proper fit aids everyone and expands the variety of our knowledgebase.

What’s your opinion of online news growth in relation to the ‘accelerated reduction’ of print publications? Has citizen journalism piqued your interest in Web news, or soured it? Any examples you can share?

Today my article “Birds On A Wire: PR In The Twitterverse” was published in Tactics, a Public Relations Society of America publication. The article is online and also appears in the October print edition mailed to PRSA members and subscribers.

My thanks to John Elsasser, Tactics Editor In Chief, for the opportunity to write this piece, and the following friends and social media experts who appear in the article: Paul Greenberg, Scott Nelson, Brent Leary, Laura Fitton and Aly Saxe.

My sidebar article “Social media skills – They got’em, and You can get’em!” also references some social media and communications experts that many people follow on Twitter including Chris Brogan, Charlene Li, Robert Scoble, Steve Rubel, and Brandon Zeuner – my personal pick-to-click regarding someone you should be following on Twitter.

Also, special thanks to Chris Brogan for introducing me to Laura Fitton. As he suggested, Laura contributed a great amount of insight – more than I could include in the piece.

Finally, thanks to a couple of my local Arizona faves, Aly Saxe and Brandon Zeuner. Aly provided some examples of practical PR applications for Twitter in the article, and Brandon has been a social media influencer ever since I started using Twitter and learning immensely from it.

Link to the article and sidebar: http://www.prsa.org/supportfiles/news/viewNews.cfm?pNewsID=842347614