Notes on Pew’s “where news comes from” study

A “where news comes from” study by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism found that the vast majority of original reporting on six major news stories in Baltimore, Md., came from newspapers.

A nice little ego boost, certainly, for those of us who work for conventional media outlets. But what does it really mean — and what doesn’t it mean?

What it means:

• That the bulk of original journalism on important news stories is still coming out of large organizations — primarily, though not exclusively, those that produce pulp-and-ink newspapers. (Although there is some disagreement on whether the study’s definition of news is valid or leads to the study being a self-fulfilling prophecy.)

What it doesn’t mean:

• That the bulk of original journalism comes from newspapers because pulp-and-ink newspapers are inherently superior. Let’s not confuse the organization with the medium here — presumably most of the news organizations in question operate Web sites as well. Why give sole credit for these stories to the print medium? (A partial argument for this interpretation can be made by noting that, at most organizations that operate both a print product and a Web product, the print product still generates most of the revenue. But that’s not necessarily the way it will always be.)
• That original journalism would go away if pulp-and-ink newspapers went away. To reach this conclusion, you would have to assume that no other medium would ever be able to fill that gap. It’d be like saying “Microsoft Windows is on 91% of all computers, so if Microsoft went away, computers would go away too.”

I love newspapers. I always have. I also believe there’s value in the existence of large newsgathering institutions with plenty of resources.

But, hey, old-media colleagues — let’s not make this study out to mean more than it really does, OK?

Further reading:

• “Study Finds That Papers Lead in Providing News Information,” by Richard Perez-Pena. New York Times, Jan. 10, 2010.
• “The state of the art of news,” by Jeff Jarvis. BuzzMachine, Jan. 11, 2010.
• “Agreeing (mainly) about the future of news,” by Howard Weaver. The Weaver Wire, Jan. 11, 2010.
• “Old media find comfort in study of Baltimore media (they didn’t look very close),” by Steve Buttry. Pursuing the Complete Community Connection, Jan, 11, 2010.

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