In September 2006 a front-page story by The Economist asking “Who killed the newspaper?” inspired an initiative of the World Editors Forum and Reuters to gain an insiders view of this forecast.

A Newsroom Barometer was set up by the WEF with Reuters and Zogby International, focusing on the perception of editors in chief and senior news executives toward free papers, online media, citizen journalism and the future of news. 435 editors worldwide participated in the survey and the goal is to repeat it from one year to another in order to get a worldwide record of how newspapers manage the transition from print to online.

For this first edition of the Newsroom Barometer, the geographic distribution of respondents was less representative of worldwide views, with 42% coming from Western Europe, 14% from Asia and 9% from North America, but this gave an in-depth view of the newspaper market in the “Old World”.

The Editor’s Weblog published the six-part analysis going over the main findings of the first global newsroom survey.
For the first Newsroom Barometer, nobody “killed the newspaper”. The first survey conducted by Zogby International proved that 85% of senior news executives see a rosy future for their newspaper. They accept competition from online sources and free papers, and in turn are making efforts to adapt to the 21st century readership. While fifteen years ago selling newspapers was simply a matter of marketing, today editors-in-chief realize that content matters more than ever.

The second survey addresses editors’ opinion on the emerging forms of journalism, new media, citizen journalism and user-generated content. Instead of expressing fear towards the rising of strong competitors, the vast majority of editors welcome them as part of the transition towards the audience’s changing habits and as a positive addition.

Part three probed editors’ own predictions for the future of their newspapers and the newspaper industry. Again, unlike talks about news executives’ rigid conservatism, the study revealed editors were realistic in their assessment. Online will be the most common platform within 10 years, news will mostly be free, and opinion and in-depth commentary will increase in importance.

As regards newsroom priorities, the responses illustrated how necessary modernization has become for the newspaper industry: 36% of the respondents considered the training of their staff in new media a priority, loosely followed by more journalist recruits, at 23%.

In the last section, John Zogby, CEO of Zogby International, and Jeff Jarvis, new media proponent and founder of Buzzmachine, comment on the results of the Newsroom Barometer. Both found that editors’ optimism and open-mindedness to new media was a clear indication that newspapers were embracing the digital revolution, yet Jarvis fears that may not be enough.

For the full Newsroom Barometer results and commentary plus the complete, analytical guide to the transformations taking place in the newspaper industry, it is possible to consult the print or PDF version of Trends in Newsrooms 2007, released 27th March 2007.
Matt Cowan produced a report for Reuter’s Video titled “Newspaper editors’ upbeat outlook” presenting the Newsroom Barometer.

Source: The Editor’s Weblog

Published: April 7, 2007