The Future of News

Will shrinking budgets and growing competition force network television news to compromise program quality? Can big-city newspapers improve circulation in the audiences advertisers want to reach? Will the wire services diversify into other areas of communications technology? What changes lie ahead for nation newsmagazines? In The Future of News, top media experts offer a probing analysis of the news business today and its place in American culture tomorrow. Charting the past decade's media trends, the authors show how an increasing segment of the population is rejecting broadly targeted media "packages" in favor of more focused, specialized information. Television network news producers, for example, face a growing viewer preference for cable news services, attention-grabbing local news programs, and lurid "infotainment" shows often broadcast by the networks own affiliates. At the same time, urban newspapers and national newsmagazines are losing readers-and revenues-despite increased news and feature coverage and frequent graphic "makeovers." And with the advent of new, competing technologies, the nation's wire services also face an uncertain future. Analyzing these and other trends, The Future of News offers a thoughtful and provocative preview of the media's role in the coming century.