The future of the press

BY WORLD EDITORS FORUM and REUTERS.| IN Media Practice | 11/05/2008

Newsroom Barometer 2008: the future of the press

The global survey gathered the answers of more than 700 editors and senior news executives from 120 countries, and was conducted online in March 2008.Although some of the main findings of this year¿s Newsroom Barometer relate to trends of newsroom integration, the survey¿s results also revealed some major trends as to the future of the press and news in general.

The fact that a large share of editors believe the most common platform for news in the future will be online - and not print - is significant. It is also significant that a majority of them think the majority of news will be free in the future. Even more interesting though is the fact that these numbers have quickly grown since last year.

Among the main findings:

-         A plurality - 44% - believe online will be the most common platform for reading news in the future, compared with 41% last year. 

-         Thirty-one cited print (down from 35% last year), 12% mobile and 7% e-paper. The rest were unsure.

-         A majority of editors - 56%- believe news in the future will be free, up from 48% from last year¿s survey. Only one third believe the news will remain paid for, while 11% were unsure.

-         Two-thirds believe some editorial functions will be outsourced, despite frequent newsroom opposition to the practice.

-         Perhaps one of the sadder findings of this year¿s Barometer, as only 45% of editors think journalism¿s quality will improve.

Looking 10 years into the future, what do you think will be the most common way of reading the news in your country?

Editors increasingly see online as the platform of reference for news in the future (44% compared to 40% last year), now significantly more so than print (30.6% compared to 35% last year).

Overall, 63% thought a type of digital platform will be the most common format, including 11.5% for mobile and 7% for e-paper, a relatively high figure combined (18.5%) for technologies that are still relatively uncommon. Results for mobile and e-paper stayed stable, indicating that news executives perceived few major evolutions in these technologies over the last year.

Do you think that the majority of news (print and online) will be free in the future?

A clear majority of respondents (56%) believe that the majority of news will be free in the future, a significant evolution, as only 47% answered ¿Yes¿ last year. Only a third of respondents (33%) believe news will remain paid for. The future of the paid-for model - paid by users directly - is increasingly put into question, even by those who produce it.

Respondents from Western Europe, the cradle of the paid-for model, were less likely to believe in free news (48%). North American respondents were on par with the average, at 58.5%. The shift towards the free news model is more apparent when it comes to ¿emerging¿ newspaper markets: in South America, Eastern Europe, Russia, the Middle East and Asia combined, 61% of respondents believed news would be free.

One might have expected Western European and North American editors to be more open to the free news model (after giving birth to freesheets and free online news), but many still think that users should pay for a quality editorial product.

Do you think it very likely, somewhat likely, not very likely, or not all likely that in the future some traditional editorial functions will be outsourced?

Surprisingly, nearly two thirds of respondents (64%) believed that in the future traditional editorial functions will be outsourced, despite frequent newsroom resistance to such announcements. Granted, 44% of editors thought it be merely "somewhat likely," but this shows editors are conscious of - maybe not thrilled by - the growing trend of outsourcing.

One might have expected that North Americans and Europeans (West and East) particularly believe in the outsourcing trend (as the ones primarily concerned by outsourcing due to higher staff costs), but the results pointed in the opposite direction. On average, respondents from other regions of the world were more likely to believe in the outsourcing of editorial tasks in the future.

Over the next 10 years, do you think that the quality of journalism will improve:

A near majority thought that journalism¿s quality would improve (45% versus 27% who thought it would worsen). Yet while this is positive, it also means 65% of respondents didn¿t affirm that journalism would improve: the finding illustrates both the relative confidence and the uncertainties of this transitional period for the newspaper industry. Furthermore, this number is slightly down from last year, when 50% of respondents thought the quality of journalism would improve.

The hardships for the North American newspaper industry continue to be felt, as a mere 30% of respondents thought that journalism¿s quality would improve. Similarly, Russians and Eastern Europeans (34%) and West Europeans (45.5%) were skeptical.