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Among the major sectors, only newspapers suffered continued revenue declines last year-an unmistakable sign that the structural economic problems facing newspapers are more severe than those of other media. When the final tallies are in, we estimate 1,000 to 1,500 more newsroom jobs will have been lost-meaning newspaper newsrooms are 30% smaller than in 2000. Beneath all this, however, a more fundamental challenge to journalism became clearer in the last year. The biggest issue ahead may not be lack of audience or even lack of new revenue experiments. It may be that in the digital realm the news industry is no longer in control of its own future. News organizations-old and new-still produce most of the content audiences consume. But each technological advance has added a new layer of complexity-and a new set of players-in connecting that content to consumers and advertisers. In the digital space, the organizations that produce the news increasingly rely on independent networks to sell their ads. They depend on aggregators (such as Google) and social networks (such as Facebook) to bring them a substantial portion of their audience. And now, as news consumption becomes more mobile, news companies must follow the rules of device makers (such as Apple) and software developers (Google again) to deliver their content. Each new platform often requires a new software program. And the new players take a share of the revenue and in many cases also control the audience data.

In 2011, the digital revolution entered a new era. The age of mobile, in which people are connected to the web wherever they are, arrived in earnest. More than four in ten American adults now own a smartphone. One in five owns a tablet. New cars are manufactured with internet built in. With more mobility comes deeper immersion into social networking. For news, the new era brings mixed blessings. New research released in this report finds that mobile devices are adding to people's news consumption, strengthening the lure of traditional news brands and providing a boost to long-form journalism. Eight in ten who get news on smartphones or tablets, for instance, get news on conventional computers as well. People are taking advantage, in other words, of having easier access to news throughout the day - in their pocket, on their desks and in their laps. At the same time, a more fundamental challenge that we identified in this report last year has intensified - the extent to which technology intermediaries now control the future of news.

Perhaps no topic in technology attracted more attention in 2011 than the rise of social media and its potential impact on news. "If searching for news was the most important development of the last decade, sharing news may be among the most important of the next," we wrote in a May 2011 report analyzing online news behavior called Navigating News Online.

Perhaps no topic in technology attracted more attention in 2011 than the rise of social media and its potential impact on news. "If searching for news was the most important development of the last decade, sharing news may be among the most important of the next," we wrote in a May 2011 report analyzing online news behavior called Navigating News Online.

"Facebook's News Feed, a homepage built by our friends and organized by our clicks and likes, isn't really a "news" feed. It's an entertainment portal for stories that remind us of our lives and offer something like an emotional popper. In fact, news readers self-identify as a minority on Facebook: Fewer than half ever read "news" on the site, according to a 2013 Pew study, and just 10 percent of them go to Facebook to get the news on purpose, as opposed, say, being assaulted by a breaking news event when you're just scanning baby photos. To see this more clearly, let's compare the BuzzFeed network's most viral stories-i.e.: the stories that go biggest on Facebook-to the top stories on Twitter and the most-searched stories. First, here are the top stories on Twitter in 2013. It's a blend of news, like terrorist attacks and music shows, and evergreen silliness with Ryan Gosling and Kim Kardashian. "

"Typically, web content flows from a website into social media and mobile apps. NowThis News, founded last September by veterans of Huffington Post, anchors its content in its mobile apps. Original videos, in digestible lengths and narrated by young voices, stem from iOS and Android apps and flow to a minimal website and the network's social media pages, and through its distribution partnerships. NowThis News has already formed partnerships with BuzzFeed, MSN, Forbes, The Atlantic, Mashable and the Columbia Journalism School. Ed O'Keefe spent 12 years moving up the ranks at ABC, going from desk assistant to executive producer of ABC News Digital, helping to integrate ABC with Yahoo News. He left to join the early version of NowThis News last year, known as Planet Daily, as editor in chief. In a Q&A conducted via phone and email, O'Keefe explained the forward-thinking news operation he's leading. The following is a lightly edited version of that conversation."

"rzezinksi criticized the media for dumbing down the news and underestimating the audience's intelligence. Stories about Paris Hilton going to jail, she said, shouldn't be labeled "news." "Somewhere over the years, the news media got lost and forgot what news was," Brzezinksi said. "I think the viewers got off the bus, and they said, 'No more.' They were so hungry for someone to say, 'This is complete and utter trash and we're not going to package it as news anymore. I think a lot of networks still haven't gotten that memo and that's why people are losing respect and trust." There's a need, Scarborough and Brzezinksi said, for more in-depth coverage that helps make people feel smarter."

Personalized news is a new trend that makes the reader more informed as well as making news obtaining easier for the reader.

Alisa Miller's TED Talk brilliantly illustrates what news industry observers have been warning for years: Our news diet is distorted. We get very little news about places outside the United States, and that amount dwindles further when we remove Iraq from the equation. If you look at our supply of news from places outside the United States that the U.S. is not directly involved in, the effect is even more pronounced. the Center for Civic Media, under the leadership of Ethan Zuckerman, is embarking on a project to build the tools to empower the individual, and the news providers themselves, to see at a glance what they're getting and what they're missing in their daily consumption. We seek to provide a nutritional label for your news diet.

"In a breaking news situation, journalists get an adrenaline rush. There is a palpable eagerness to get the scoop, to be the first to bring the story to the public. In today's world of social media, mobile phones, and the real-time 24/7 news cycle, though, journalists face competition from all sides: eyewitness accounts, official sources, and even friends and family are sharing news before mainstream news institutions have "published" the official news story. To illustrate this predicament, I compiled 26 tweets that "broke" the Boston Marathon bombing news."

Google is testing a new feature that lets you connect your Twitter account to Google News. Some people are seeing a "Friends" box on the right hand side of Google News inviting them to do this. The friends box asks you to enter your Twitter username and click "Save." When you click save, Google News will refresh, and you will see a list of updates containing news articles shared by the people you follow.

The Economist Online is hosting a debate on the news industry at http://econ.st/p9l5yK and we would like to hear your thoughts on Facebook. Like many other industries before it, the news industry is being disrupted by the internet. Among other things, technology is undermining the business models of newspapers: the news organisations that employ the most journalists and do the most in-depth reporting. At the same time, the internet enables new models of journalism by democratising the tools of publishing, allowing greater participation from readers and making possible entirely new kinds of organisation, such as WikiLeaks. Do the benefits of the internet to the news ecosystem outweigh the drawbacks?

Describing the personalized aggregation service Trove as a "next generation" news experience, The Washington Post's Vijay Ravindran figures it probably won't save journalism on its own, but it's a start.

Ezra Klein's new journalistic venture, Project X, starts with the proposition that news organizations focus too much on what's new and not enough on what's important. What will his alternative look like? A "21st Century encyclopedia" as much as a news site. "We want to think really hard about how to connect not just new information, but to bring it together with important contextual information to create a more thorough source and place to understand the world," Klein said.

"At a moment when the network is poised to make a number of changes, the American Press Institute and Twitter, in collaboration with research company DB5, have produced a new study that probes the relationship between news use and the Twittersphere. The study, which involved an online survey of more than 4,700 social media users, finds that Twitter users tend to be heavier news consumers than other social media users. News, indeed, is one of the primary activities that they engage in on the network."

Google News is also doing a lot of thinking about the best ways to personalize news content for its users. The product currently makes use of two main types of customization, Rohe notes: the explicit and the implicit. Explicit personalization is the kind Google News emphasized in last year's redesign, the kind that asks users to tell Google their interests so their news results can be appropriately tailored. But you don't always know what you like. So, starting this April, signed-in Google News users in the U.S. began seeing stories in their "News for You" feeds that were based not on their stated preferences, but on their behavior: their news-related web historie

"It was another sad case of jumping the gun. Two days after the bombings at the Boston Marathon, the AP reported that a suspect was in custody and would be brought to court. Sources at other news orgs including CNN confirmed that, leading hundreds of reporters to show up outside court. The problem? They were wrong. (Read an entire timeline of this on Buzzfeed here). So when news breaks, who do you trust now? Cable news? Broadcast news? Friends on social media? It seems harder and harder to decide these days, but pick your poison (or "none of the above") in our poll, or share your extended views in the comments."

"When big news breaks, we instinctively look to CNN. We want CNN to be good, to be worthy of its moment. That impulse took a beating last week. On Wednesday at 1:45 p.m., the correspondent John King reported that a suspect had been arrested. It was a big scoop that turned out to be false. Mr. King, a good reporter in possession of a bad set of facts, was joined by The Associated Press, Fox News, The Boston Globe and others, but the stumble could not have come at a worse time for CNN. When viewers arrived in droves - the audience tripled to 1.05 million, from 365,000 the week before, according to Nielsen ratings supplied by Horizon Media - CNN failed in its core mission. It was not the worst mistake of the week - The New York Post all but fingered two innocent men in a front-page picture - but it was a signature error for a live news channel."