The most relevant media trends for newspapers

PR Week lists its picks for the 10 most important media trends. Nothing is new or shocking, but the list reinforces many of the predictions that have been being made for some time. Here are some highlights:

Business woes for newspapers: "Colby Atwood, VP of media research firm Borrell Associates, says the newspaper industry is in the midst of a long period of transition that will take 10 to 15 years. Such a transition will result in more consolidations and reductions in work forces, as the industry adjusts to playing a smaller role in news distribution and advertising, he adds. Because smaller work forces will undoubtedly affect a newspaper's ability to gather news, Atwood says, newspapers will have to focus on the news that is most relevant to their readers.

Digitalization of print media: "There will be more of an impact on newspapers in [the next] two to five years than has happened in the past 100. Online news is going to impact the traditional newspaper much quicker and faster." "While online content has served as an adjunct to print for many years now, in the future the inverse will be true... print publications will provide deeper analysis and more editorials than their online counterparts."

Interview with Market Watch's Jon Friedman: The internet is playing a very large and influential role in forming public tastes. The public likes what it gets on the internet: the convenience, the speed, hopefully the reliability of the news and commentary. And now you have blogs entering the picture in a forceful way, changing everything. Now anyone can be a publisher or journalist. As a result, these pretty stodgy magazines and newspapers that have relied for a century on the same formula have to hit themselves in the backside and get it together and adapt.

Source: PR Week