'News Deserts' and "Fixing" Journalism (Especially Local News)

In an article I recently discovered, the author first begins by speaking of the future of local news and the rise of digital. They explored the main challenges face by local news and the consequences those difficulties have on our society as a whole. Due to this fact, the decline of print and ad sales has depleted basically all resources for small independent papers and this is leading to a chain of reactions that has caused 'news deserts' in areas across the nation. News deserts are places where there is little to no local media in existence anymore due to the difficulty of having to compete with national news outlets. This lack of local reporting infrastructure is problem for both journalism and can also lead to negative, global consequences as well. One of these consequences is the lack of trust in our current attitude towards the press. This lack of trust that the people have in the press only seems to keep rising.

The author of this article also offered three suggestion at the end of his piece as well:

1. Listen More: Trust with audience is built on communication and transparency. A senior editor gave a suggestion on how we could "fix" journalism and referenced how 'town halls' between the communities and journalists could possibly help bridge this gap of trust.

2. Break Down the Newsroom Walls: Another way journalists could increase trust with audiences is by breaking down walls and lowering the iron curtain between the readers and the newsroom.

3. Don't Write Off Local News: It is suffering because it is not prioritized. Stories produced by local news can get out in the large amount/saturation of content that is now available on media outlets such as Facebook and Twitter.r

*News Article: https://medium.com/uo-super-j-in-nyc-2016/columbia-journalism-review-taking-on-the-year-that-changed-journalism-df4830d09c25

Is Media Consolidation Leading to Even More Agenda Setting?

Agenda setting has become even more prevalent in this day in age due to the consolidation of media that has occurred quite dramatically over the past few decades. In an article and infographic I discovered online, it reveals that 6 media giants now control over 90% of what we read, watch, or listen to. The media has never been more consolidated.

Just only a few decades ago American media was owned by 50 companies 1983, now that number has plummeted to just 6 companies. Theres six companies are:

1.) GE

2.) News-Corp

3.) Disney

4.) Viacom

5.) Time Warner

6.) CBS

This means that only 232 media executives control the information that is fed to 277 million Americans everyday. For ever 850,000 subscribers, there is only ONE media executive in control. These "big six" control 70% of our cable, whole 3,762 businesses contribute to the other 30%.
New Corp, which is one of the “big six”  owns the top newspapers on 3 different continents.  These newspapers are Wall Street Journal, The Sun, and The Australian. The radio is also dominated as well. Clear Channel owns 1,200 stations around the country. Back in 1995, The FCC forbade compares from ever owning even 40 stations at the time. Furthermore, the "big six" also control movie outlets as well. They collectively hit $7 billion in box office sales in 2010, which is two times more in box office sale than the next 140 studios who only made $3.5 billion combined.

*News Article: http://www.businessinsider.com/these-6-corporations-control-90-of-the-media-in-america-2012-6

Social Media is Leading to Rethinking

In an article on Pew Research Center, the author Monica Anderson describes how social media users occasionally change their minds about political candidates and issues due to the exposure to the range of new ideas and viewpoints that they encounter. The article explains, "overall, 20 percent of social media users say they've modified their stance on social or political issue because of material they saw on social media, and 17 percent say social media has helped to change their views about a specific political candidates." The research shows that liberal democrats in particular are a bit more likely to say they have ever modified their views on political issue compared to republicans.

In addition, the survey described in the article also asked respondents to tell them in their own words about a recent time that they had rethought an issue/idea due to social media in which they found a number of distinct themes that emerged. The most common theme mentioned by respondents was the major presidential candidates as the "political or social issue" they changed their minds on. Around 1-in-5 users mentions either Donald Trump (18%) or Hillary Clinton (21%), and around 1-in-10 referenced Bernie Sanders. A lot of times, the people who said they changed their minds on a candidate revealed that social media pointed their opinion in a negative dictation on that candidate.  Respondents who indicated they had changed their minds about Clinton were more than three times as likely to say that their opinion changed in a negative and respondents who mentioned Trump were nearly five times as likely to say that their opinion became more negative.

 Although, the research does show that only SOME have been swayed by the information the social media sites. The majority of users said they never modified their views on a particular  candidate (82% of respondents) and also they never changed their views on political issue (79% of respondents) based on things they say on social media. 

*News Article: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/11/07/social-media-causes-some-users-to-rethink-their-views-on-an-issue/

"Earned Media": 2016 Record Audience for Debate

Approximately 100 million people were expected to watch the first presidential debate between Trump and Hillary in the 2016 Presidential campaign. Those numbers would make it the most watched presidential debate in history.

Televised Debates have become the centerpiece of the presidential campaign. All throughout the history of debates, they have brought in a high number of viewers.  The first televised debate between Kennedy and Nixon almost 50 years ago was watched my 70 million people. Ever since its invention, the television has had a growing importance of television in politics. Some say the televised debate was the reason Nixon lost the presidential election, because he was not as comfortable in front of the camera and audience like Kennedy was and that he performed badly. However, Nixon was favored over Kennedy by radio listeners, so his presence and comfortability with television might have been behind his down fall in the election.

With the enormous amount of viewers watching presidential debates, a slip-up on live air during a debate could have a significant negative impact on a candidates campaign. In this day and age, it seems that presidential candidates must be somewhat of who are comfortable in front of a camera or else they are doomed, which is something that was discussed in our text. Actors or performers almost have an advantage today's world because they are used to that type of exposure. Examples of this are Ronald Regan and Arnold Shwarzennager who were both actors before they became successful politicians.

*News Article: https://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2016/09/daily-chart-19

Profit and Money Spent: 2016 TV Political Ads

During times of peak demand (during the election), stations can sell political ads spaces for 40-50 times more than a regular television ad. Political advertising is now over 10%-12% of average revenue and it keeps growing at a fast rate. This growth is making political ad spots disproportionately valuable.

During the 2016 election, the campaign was set to break records due to the fact that it was the first-ever election without an incumbent presidents running, so there was no financial restrictions. Corporation are allowed to spend as much money as they would like to support or defeat the presidential candidate. The advertising volume was at 122% over 2012 levels several months before the election was to even take place. Digital ads were expected to reach an all time high when this article came out, but interestingly enough the bulk of the money was estimated to go to local broadcast tv.

All of the money spent will become revenue on the other side of the ad business. Some of the broadcasters that were predicted to make the most from the presidential election E.W. Scipps, Gray Television, Tenga, Sinclar Broadcasting Nexstar, Tribune, Media General, Entravision,  CBS, Comcast, the Television Bureau of Advertising.Advertisers have also been more aggressive in buying time in the third and fourth quarter than previously because they they don't want to have to compete for inventory if there is a possible sell-out and end up paying a sky-rocketed rate. A whopping 50% of political ad money goes to media companies in the first 5-6 weeks of the fourth quarter.

However, while the next political payday is a few years away, investors cannot assume that the TV will remain in such high demand on the  political advertising market. Social Media is becoming increasingly popular in today's world and this will sure to be reflected in the future of political advertising.

News Article: https://www.thestreet.com/story/13594342/1/tv-political-ad-spending-will-break-records-in-2016-and-these-broadcasters-will-cash-in.html

Which Medium is the Most Powerful Tool for Political Campaign Ads?

A study shows that broadcast television was more trusted and had more of an impact that any other platform during the 2016 presidential election. An article written by Steve Lanzano details, "According to the new Voter Funnel study from GfK, which measured the actions taken as a result of being exposed to specific types of political advertising, TV was the most influential medium at every step of the decision-making process" (Lanzano 2016). This medium influenced Americans awareness and interest. They also got more information from TV than any other platform, when they considered voting and voted to determine who they should vote for. The TV also helped drive traffic to other media. 70% of respondents took action in response to seeing a political advertisement on TV. 26% of those respondents went online to learn more about the candidate and 31% discussed the candidates ad with others.

Further more, local television online platforms did especially well also with 64% of voters responding that they visited the websites of local news stations more frequently for information than social media platforms with only 11%.These statistics contradict a lot of peoples beliefs that digital media platforms are becoming the lead media for advertising strategies. Rather, people first turn to television and then after some initial information is gathered it drives the audience to online content to investigate the initial information further. Digital media platforms are being used to supplement information from the TV.  Another positive statistic about local broadcast television in particular, is that it is found to be way more credible and more effective of a way to get a candidates message to the votes. Across all ages, genders and political affiliations 84% of participants said that they believed  the local broadcast was the platform that they trusted most for information. This is over double the percentage of respondents that listed social media, which was only 41%.
As research shows, local broadcast television continues to be the most powerful tool for political campaigns, despite new and expanding technologies. It remains the most impactful way to talk to voters and it drives political discussion and propels voters to learn more.

*News Article: https://www.campaignsandelections.com/campaign-insider/study-local-tv-is-the-biggest-influencer-of-voter-decisions

Public Policy and Social Media

This study I discovered revealed that the majority of Americans see the impact the social media has on public policy. Nearly 80% of American believe that social media has at least some impact on public policy outcomes, according to  a new Finn Futures survey. There was 1000 American adults who participated in the survey. Three of the mail public policy components that the participants believed social media has influence on is , gun control, and trade. College aged respondents were the most likely to respond that social media has a significant impact, which is not a surprise. Although, these participants did have split views on whether this impact was positive or negative. Over half of the participants said that social media had some kind of impact on their voting decision. Also, over half of the respondents said that they shared their political opinions on social media at least occasionally. Member of Congress must be prepared to respond in an increasingly digital way, due to this increasingly high rate of how much social media effects politics. Social media is playing a bigger role in shaping public policy and so much more.

*News Article: https://www.holmesreport.com/research/article/americans-see-social-media-impact-on-public-policy

Research Shows Negative Media Coverage of Trump

A new study recently conducted by the Pew Research Center found that Trump's media coverage in his first 60 days of presidency was far more negative than past presidents. As shown in the picture attached on the right, the percentage of stories from the first 60 days of presidency that had an overall negative assessment of Trump was 62%. This is a significantly higher number than Obama, Bush and Clinton (Obama=20%, Bush=28%, and Clinton=28%). The number of stories than had an overall positive assessment of Trump were just 5%. Researcher who conducted the study selected sites with larger audiences. These sites included newspapers, radio station outlets, websites, and nightly and evening new programs from cable and broadcast TV. The research also found other discrepancies as well. An article by Max Londberg that described these findings explains, "Compared with the three prior presidencies, coverage of Trump's early days in office moved further away from a focus on the policy agenda and more towards character and leadership."  Only 31 percent of stories covered policy agenda from Trump, compared to 50 percents with Obama, 65 percent with Bush and 58 percent with Clinton.

*News Article: http://www.kansascity.com/news/nation-world/article176797431.html

U.S. Press Freedom Tracker

A screenshot of the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker

Earlier this year, the U.S. Freedom Tracker was launched to serve as a central database to track our countries freedom and specifically focuses on attacks on the press. It tracks the number of arrests of journalists, the number of equipment searches and seizers, the number of physically attacks on journalists, and the number of border stops of journalists.  It is explained in an article written by Bianca Fortis, "As concerns about domestic press freedom violations grow, a coalition of media partners has created a database to track those violations" (Fortis 2017). The tracker will be operated by the Freedom of the Press Foundation, but is a collaborative project from around twenty media partners. The database primarily focuses on the government interference with the press, including those actions by the Trump administration, as well as local elected officials and police departments. The U.S. Freedom Tracker also presents featured incidents on the main page that relate to the numbers that are being tracked as well as recent incidents, so you can remain up-to-date with news related to these types of issues focused on. Readers can also 'submit an incident' on issues of freedom of the press.

• Question for Reader: Do you think the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker provides helpful information?

*News Article: http://mediashift.org/2017/08/u-s-press-freedom-tracker-log-press-freedom-violations/

CNN Further Focuses Coverage Towards Tech News

This previous week in our our Mass Media & Politics class we discussed reporting the news. I found a article online that relates to this topic that I thought I should share. The article details a new venture that CNN is taking a part in called 'Pacific' which is a news platform that specifically focuses on the West Coast's changing media landscape. The author Maxwell Tani explains, "the new franchise will be led by Senior Media Reporter Dylan Byers, and will focus on the powerful West Coast-based companies that have changed media, technology, and politics" (Tani 2017). This platform will starting sending out daily newsletters, events, and a podcast soon on 'Pacific'. According to the article, CNN technology coverage has notably increased within the year. They also recently launched another website that is different than 'Pacific' because it more broadly focuses on the business of technology. That is a standalone website like CNNMoney and Can Politics, which focuses on technology called "CNNTech". Some key features tabs of the site include 'Business', 'Culture', 'Gadgets', 'Future', and 'Startups'. Its seems as if more and more news sites are shifting more of their news sources towards tech news and CNN is definitely one of those sources.

• Question to Ponder: Do you think it is a good idea for major news sources to focus more of their news coverage towards tech news?

*News Article: http://www.businessinsider.com/cnn-tech-site-pacific-silicon-valley-dylan-byers-2017-9

Amazon CEO Buys The Washington Post in the "Dying" Age of Newspapers

Before doing some research on the Amazon CEO, Jeff Bezos, I knew little about his "empire" of companies he owns and just how impressive of a man he is. If you look on the right at the picture I posted of 'The Bezos Empire' you can see the incredible amount of companies that Bezos has purchased or invested in. In what some refer to as the 'dying' age of newspapers, Bezos decided to buy The Washington Post for $230 million with no prior experience  in the news paper business or journalism less than three years ago. Although he had with no prior experience Bezos has still somehow turned the company around after they were facing years of decline by revamping the newspaper to be more apart of the digital age.

In an article I found online it explains, "Bezos isn't involved in setting the Post's editorial direction at all. But he's taken a more hands-on approach on the business and technology sides to reinvent the paper as a 'media and technology company'" (Kim 2016). One way he has done this is by revitalizing the newspapers website and mobile apps. Bezos also has employed web strategies and software programs to track readership of stories and ways in which ways readership if affected by different options. Furthermore, during a time where most newspapers are making staff cuts Bezos has significantly increase The Post's hiring. The companies engineering team has almost tripled in the past few years and it has also hired new editors and reporters to increase the content that is published. Bezos also uses social media platforms, such as Twitter and Facebook, to help distribute the new content that is published and offers discounts to Amazon members to help even further push 
viewership. 

It is amazing to see the growth of The Washington Post that has come from the focus on it being more a media and technology company. I have attached a photo of a growth chart of to this blog that shows the significant increase in the news of viewers of the website since Bezos bought the company. It seems as if though newspapers are dying, we just need to make them a part of the digital age instead of trying to resit the digital age and Bezos understood that.


*News Article: http://www.businessinsider.com/how-the-washington-post-changed-after-jeff-bezos-acquisition-2016-5/#its-also-hired-a-bunch-of-new-editors-and-reporters-lately-it-now-publishes-1200-articles-a-day-its-content-varies-from-breaking-news-and-long-features-to-fun-photo-slideshows-like-this-one-8

How Facebook Live Is Changing The Way News Is Being Covered

Facebook Live is a pretty recent feature that allows any Facebook user to stream a live video on the site. Since the start Facebook Live has had a lot of negative back lash due to ethical reasons such as numerous users using this feature as an outlet to share live videos of crimes they have committed. It has also received some good feedback as well because it provides an very simple solution for broad casting live videos, which was a difficult task previously. One major thing that is new Facebook feature is stirring up is journalism and  I discovered an article online about Facebook Live that gives us a better understanding of just exactly how it is. 

The article lists five considerations for understanding how live-streaming services are challenging journalism today:

1. 'Liveness' and Bearing Witness:
In the article it explains that 'liveness' is a feature that media/news outlets can now provide due to live-streaming services and that this 'liveness' allows for a great sense of authenticity. Now everyone can cut out news broadcasts as the middle man and bear witness to actual live events that are steaming.

2. Visually Driven Content:
It is stated in the article that news that is visually oriented can have major benefits such as increasing audience attention, easier recollection, increased engagement, etc. 

3. Citizen Reporting:
Facebook live and audience-led forms of journalism are now allowing people to by-pass news organizations all together to receive news content in some instances.

4. Live Video Driving News:
Its is stated in the article, "Facebook Live videos can create a cycle in which social media videos lead to mainstream media coverage of an event or issue, generating heightened public awareness -- which means more people are likely to post new live videos on that topic."

5. Ethics:
Ethics is a pitfall regarding Facebook Live because even though normal, every-day people now have ability to report the news straight from their smartphone, they do not have to abide by the same code of ethics that journalists have to.

• Question to Ponder: Can you think of any connections between the Facebook Live feature and journalism; possibly how live streaming videos could change/have changed political journalism in particular? 

*News Article: https://theconversation.com/what-facebook-live-means-for-journalism-72233

Quitting Facebook Can Help Democracy

This image depicts Facebook as the "master key" to democracy

While I was searching the web, I came across an article I found very interesting that gives you a simple suggestion that can help with this countries democracy. All you have to do is......................quit using Facebook!

The author of the article, Martin Weigert, explains that Facebook plays a unintentional but key role in weakening the democratic values through things such as fake news, micro-targeting- and bots. So, he suggests that ALL you have to do it simply stop using Facebook.com and the Facebook app, you don't even have to stop using the other services it provides such at Instagram and Messenger. Seems easy enough doesn't it? Weigert explains that if we stop using the Facebook service we will be cause them to lose profit. With less people focusing a large portion of their time on this service, there will also be less desire for people to want to buy advertisement spots on Facebook. In the end, the main goal of quitting Facebook is to help weaken the business model.

This suggestion seems easy enough on paper, but how easy do you think it will actually be to quit Facebook? The service allows you with a way to connect and keep up-to-date with your friends and family. It also has other features that would be hard to let go of. On a serious note, after natural disasters, it gives people an option to "Mark them selves safe" on Facebook, so that people can know you are ok and have less worry when there might be no other way to reach you. There is also less serious options such as Facebook groups and Facebook events that are easy ways to stay connected and plan events.

• Questions to Ponder after reading this post I have to questions for you:

1. Do you think quitting Facebook would be hard or easy?
2. Do you believe that quitting Facebook could help our democracy?

*News Article: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/if-you-are-worried-about-hacked-democracy-quit-facebook_us_59b68cc1e4b0b5e5310792c2