Traditional journalism increasingly finds itself competing with newer, less costly models of news delivery, such as personal Web logs (or blogs), a study from Columbia University's Project for Excellence in Journalism finds. Moreover, as traditional media outlets continue to lose audience share, the study suggests, news organizations will be tempted to cut back on news gathering and change their standards to compete.

The report, The State of the American News Media, looked at nine different sectors of the press, including newspapers, magazines, network television, cable television, local television, the Internet, radio, the ethnic press, and alternative media, and, for each sector, examined six different areas — audience, economics, ownership, newsroom investment, and public attitudes. It found, among other things, that only three sectors of the media — the ethnic press, alternative weeklies, and the Internet — continue to show audience growth, and that the newspaper industry in particular had a tough time of it in 2004, with lower than expected revenue growth, continued job losses, and lagging stock prices. The report also concluded that there was little sign that major news sites are taking advantage of Web-based technologies, and that the industry's pay-as-you-go approach to the Internet was likely to cost it further ground against non-traditional competitors.

"In effect, Americans are shifting from being consumers of news to proactive partners in creating their own personalized news account each day, and traditional journalism is only part of that mix," said Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, which is funded by the Philadelphia-based Pew Charitable Trusts. "This amounts to a new kind American citizenship with more responsibilities for the consumer."

To download the complete report (34 pages, PDF), visit: http://www.pewtrusts.org/pdf/stateofmedia05_execsum.pdf.