New Media Unit

Stephen Colbert weighs in on CNN's recent decision to lay off 50 employees - "nobody important, just editors and photojournalists" - by praising CNN's use of iReporters, its name for citizen journalists. "Why buy the cow when you can have it shakily videotape its own milk for free?" Colbert asked. He then has one of his "Me Reporters" run down the day's headlines, which he reads from the front page of a USA Today still in a newspaper box. || Related: CNN's redesigned iReport will look more like a social network than a news site

CNN (this is a few months ago) laid off 50 employees, mainly editors and photojournalists because CNN's new iReporters (or citizen journalists) make up for these people who are professionals and are getting paid. iReporters do not get paid or... anything at all really. Colbert seems upset by the new trend of citizen journalism.

We've still got another month left of 2011 and already Facebook has supplied a list of the 40 articles shared the most on the site this year. Probing for common themes in these stories might offer marketers some insights into the kinds of messages that Facebook users tend to relay the most: human interest stories prevail over all other topics. And the old journalism school teaching about babies and pets on newspaper covers producing the most sales seems to have a parallel on social media, since articles concerning these two topics seem to get shared more than others.

With little original news reporting surfacing on this Web site, 'perhaps an important lesson learned is that tools don't make a tradesman.'

At The New York Times, multimedia storytelling is becoming more a part of the journalism and less of an afterthought.

Heeding the warning against forcing 'existing quality standards into new technology,' a journalist is cautiously optimistic about the digital future.

From breaking news curation to new revenue models, many an organization put its best digital foot forward. Social media became more tightly integrated into reporting and overall strategy, while mobile app creation and content optimization were no longer a nice-to-have, but a must. These trends are quickly shaping the young and agile web news industry. As journalists redefine themselves with new tools and skill sets, they're reinvigorating a business that just a few years ago was written off as doomed. Here's a look at six moves with the biggest impact on digital journalism this year.

"The transformation of the nation's news landscape has already taken a heavy toll on print news sources, particularly print newspapers. But there are now signs that television news - which so far has held onto its audience through the rise of the internet - also is increasingly vulnerable, as it may be losing its hold on the next generation of news consumers."

Trayvon Martin, an unarmed 17-year-old, was fatally shot on Feb. 26 in Sanford, Fla. The next day his death was a top story on the Fox-affiliated television station in Orlando, the closest big city to Sanford. Within a week it was being covered by newspapers around the state. But it took several weeks before the rest of the country found out. It was not until mid-March, after word spread on Facebook and Twitter, that the shooting of Trayvon by George Zimmerman, 26, was widely reported by the national news media, highlighting the complex ways that news does and does not travel in the Internet age.

The migration of audiences toward digital news advanced to a new level in 2011 and early 2012, the era of mobile and multidigital devices.  More than three-quarters of U.S. adults own laptop or desktop computers, a number that has been stable for some years.1 Now, in addition, 44% of adults own a smartphone, and the number of tablet owners grew by about 50% since the summer of 2011, to 18% of Americans over age 18.

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.

More than ever, people are using Twitter, Facebook and other social media sources to learn about what's happening in the world as traditional news outlets become increasingly less relevant to the digital generation. But the trend toward Internet and social media-based news - and the accompanying rush to be first to report a story - also comes with pitfalls. Some 50% of news consumers have received "breaking news" via social media, only to find out later it was erroneously reported.

"For American adults under 30, social media has far surpassed newspapers and has equaled TV as a primary source of daily news, according to a new study of news consumption trends by the Pew Research Center for the People & The Press."

"More Americans get news online than from radios or newspapers, Pew's biennial study of news consumption habits says. Twenty-three percent of people living in the United States said they'd read a print newspaper the day before. That's half the number who did so in 2000, when nearly 50 percent read a paper the day before. Twenty-nine percent reported reading a newspaper in any format."

"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."

"While some of Gingras' points have come up in other recent talks elsewhere, he discussed at AEJMC in more detail what his vision for the future of journalism would mean for those charged with training the next generation of journalists. And, just as Google has dramatically changed the way we access information, so too would the vision Gingras described radically alter the ways journalism educators teach and inspire their students"

The Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism is dedicated to trying to understand the information revolution. We specialize in using empirical methods to evaluate and study the performance of the press, particularly content analysis. We are non partisan, non ideological and non political. Our goal is to help both the journalists who produce the news and the citizens who consume it develop a better understanding of what the press is delivering, how the media are changing, and what forces are shaping those changes. We have emphasized empirical research in the belief that quantifying what is occurring in the press, rather than merely offering criticism, is a better approach to understanding.

"Who Owns the News Media is an interactive database of companies that own news properties in the United States. Use the site to compare the companies, explore each media sector or read profiles of individual companies."

The Associated Press updated its staff social media guidelines today with a new section on live-tweeting news and an updated section on how to connect with newsmakers on social media.

While it's become easier for journalists to find information, discover sources through the web, and use tools like Storify to curate content, the process still relies on having the bodies to scour for this information. And that's the challenge. In the newspaper industry, there were more than 13,000 newsroom jobs lost between 2006 and 2010, according to Pew's State of the News Media report. At the same time, the amount of information available has grown at an astronomical rate. These two things are at odds.

Choire Sicha had a revelation Wednesday as he watched journalists live-tweet Rupert Murdoch's testimony: "Who gamed a substantial number of professional news-gatherers into providing free content for Twitter?"