It's long and filled with figures, but anyone interested in news today should read the Associated Press's report, A New Model for News. I'll confess I didn't read it until now -- after all, the report is 71 pages and is research-based -- but it finally looks at media research the way I think we should be: looking at how people consume media, not just what they consume. When I was in the profession, I was inundated with studies along the lines of "Did you read this story?" "Would you like more, less or is our presentation of ----- news just right?" or "How many times in the last ---- did you look at the ----- section?" All that is a nice way of getting a snapshot of what readers read, but it doesn't get into why they read or what they get out of reading. This study does that. A snapshot of its conclusions? People are getting a plethora of news and facts, but they're having trouble processing what they are reading and viewing. They want more news -- and they want more depth. Just not at the same time.
Mark Potts at the Recovering Journalist blog has a nice summation of the report. He emphasizes a key point, I believe. Young people see news as social currency. They want to be able to share with their friends.
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