The two are no strangers to the practice and study of media. Downie, a former executive editor of The Washington Post teaches at Arizona State University, and Schudson is a professor at the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University. The Columbia Journalism Review published a 35-page summary (which I have read) of the complete 100-page October report (which I have not read) on media’s current condition and strategies to salvage the legacy.

Reactions to the report have been widespread and range from CJR’s digitally published comments to media columnists such at The Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz, to even Twitter where the debate can be followed as #columbiajreport. An ironical footnote to the report’s release is it occurred in the same week The New York Times announced plans to reduce its newsroom by 100 positions, and the Audit Bureau of Circulation reported newspaper circulation declined almost 11% in 2009. Please see the accompanying table published in The New York Times.

So, how did Downie and Schudson incite this debate?

They conclude, “Fewer journalists are reporting less news in fewer pages, and the hegemony that near-monopoly metropolitan newspapers enjoyed during the last third of the twentieth century, even as their primary audience eroded, is ending.” They remind us that the number of newspaper editorial employees has dropped 33% from 60,000 in 1992 to 40,000 today.

But, you might ask, aren’t all things, including the business models of media moguls, shaped by evolution? Isn’t survival of the fittest a business world imperative? Not necessarily.

The duo quotes a Knight Foundation commission that suggests independent reporting “is as vital to the healthy functioning of communities as clean air, safe streets, good schools, and public health.” In fact, it is this reporting, or accountability journalism as they call it, which “undergirds democracy” as it performs the press’ watchdog function. They believe that only legacy media and their outsized newsrooms can sustain this type of reporting.

While they celebrate the plethora of online news operations launched by entrepreneurs, philanthropists and universities, they conclude, “it is unlikely that any but the smallest of these news organizations can be supported” by current online revenue.

Given the enormity of responsibility the pair ascribes to legacy media, namely the perpetuation of democracy, their six strategies to save newspapers seem almost simplistic. These strategies include reduced taxes through nonprofit status, increased philanthropic donations, university-supported reporting, wider access to public databases, heightened pressure on public broadcasters to provide local news, and government funding of editorial functions.

Certainly, it’s highly unlikely the government will appoint a media czar to restructure an industry already well on its way to being reinvented by its more innovative practitioners and experimental consumers. Still, the report is a provocative analysis of media’s traditions, foibles and best practices. And it should be studied because it may inspire novel and enduring changes.

Dr. Richard Ganahl is a professor in mass communications at Bloomsburg University, PA. His column GANAHL ON MEDIA is an occasional column about media issues. Ganahl is a former media manager, publisher, entrepreneur and consultant. He is co-editor with Dr. Louisa Ha of the award-winning Webcasting Worldwide (2007), and the founding faculty advisor of BU Now, a multi-media, student-managed media blog site.

Austin Robbins, owner of Ceylon Studios, photo courtesy of Kristey Mascaro.

Austin Robbins, a 23-year-old photography business owner (Ceylon Studios) who grew up in Bloomsburg wasn’t convinced the location of a small town would produce enough profit to sustain his new business. “Main Street feels like it’s been dying off and I wanted to bring something back to the downtown area where people could just hang out and watch the interaction,” Robbins says.

His new location, Elizabethtown, Pa, is a college town similar to Bloomsburg. Although it doesn’t have as much foot traffic, the downtown shop owners hold monthly meetings with the agenda of improving the downtown area in hopes of trying to get people to interact more with their town and notice the local businesses. The primary goal of these meetings is to consider options to make positive influences and have a positive impact on the student life.

Though the effects of the recession have been particularly hard on artists, gallery owners and hopeful entrepreneurs, Robbins was determined to prevail in a time of economic dismay. Although his business seemed to pick up quickly, Robbins has recently discovered that many people would rather have a friend take their pictures, rather than spending the extra cost in a professional studio. The price of a SLR (single lens reflex) cameras has been dropping at an increasingly high rate, making it possible for most anyone to own one. “It’s risky in my opinion. Wedding pictures, senior pictures, they are things that only happen once in your life, and its an experience everyone should have. Pictures last forever. Memories are something you should always invest more in,” Robbins concluded.

The New York Foundation of the Arts recently conducted a statewide survey on how the recession is affecting artists and found that many have lost their jobs and are struggling to afford studio space and materials as well as covering their daily living expenses. To make matters worse, many artists have lost representation, as more galleries have tightened their belts or shut down altogether.

As galleries close and art nonprofits suffer from cutbacks in funding and the loss of support from private institutions, artists must look for new outlets and resources in order to sustain themselves. Many have discovered alternative options for showcasing their work and staying afloat financially.

While it is easy to focus on the negative, many artists are transforming their struggle into opportunity, proving tough times can also be a period of remarkable ingenuity. Funding Emerging Art with Sustainable Tactics (FEAST ), a reoccurring communal dinner in a church basement, is a means of democratically supporting emerging local artists. Open to the public, diners pay for their meal on a sliding scale and vote for one of the proposed artists projects, which is then funded by the proceeds from the dinner and presented at the next FEAST.

The economic downturn might not make profits any easier or sustainable for artists, but they continue to look ahead.

Becoming a D.J. is very simple and no experience is required and you do not have to start as a freshman, you can join when you are an upper classman. The staff of WBUQ will teach you how to work the equipment and give you the confidence to become a D.J. You can even pick your own program.

WBUQ D.J. Kelly Barnett, Photo Courtesy of Julianne Cozens

One D.J. who has been working at WBUQ- The Revolution since her freshman year is Kelly Barnett. She started as a freshman and has been on the executive board at WBUQ- The Revolution since Spring 2008, and has her own program at the radio station. In asking her a few questions about the radio station, you can realize that she is a committed and loyal member of the radio station and really wants it to thrive!

She wants to convey that anyone can become a D.J. and to understand it is not as scary and nerve-racking as it might seem. When the question arose about what you would tell a student who wants to join but is too afraid, Barnett said, “I was the exact same way. I was so nervous, but I guess I kind of sucked it up and just went for it. It’s really not scary at all – we don’t yell at you and you get to do things the way you would like to on air (for the most part). It’s really a great experience – surprisingly minimum pressure.”

Another question that came up was how working for the radio station could help you in the future? As a Mass Communication major and Marketing minor, “having broadcasting experience will be a great addition to my resume,” she said, and it will help her find a career after she graduates. Being a part of a program like this might cause stress in the beginning but in the end it will be worth it when you have a job and you enjoy what you are doing.

At the conclusion of the interview, Barnett was asked what advice would you give someone who wanted to join the staff of WBUQ- The Revolution? Barnett answered the question with this simple response: “JOIN! It looks great to have a real position in a club on your resume, and it looks even better when it’s a club that makes you unique. I mean really, how many people really can say they have been a DJ on the radio? We are looking for new members for next year and next semester- I would love to meet them!”

So if you had any concerns about joining the WBUQ staff, go and ask them! They are always willing to sit and explain everything they know and want to make you feel comfortable there. Any questions please contact Kelly Barnett at klb33104@huskies.bloomu.edu.

Learn how to become a web publisher at “Web Publishing: A BU Now How To Seminar.” The seminar is sponsored by The Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania Institute for Culture and Society Special Focus lecture series, and is at 7 p.m. on Thursday October 22, in the Andruss Library’s Schweiker Room.

BU Now faculty advisor Richard Ganahl, and professor of mass communications, and BU Now student editors will conduct the seminar.

Learn how to publish stories, podcasts, pictures and videos at this hands-on seminar.

Come early and bring your laptop!

BU Now is a newly organized blog-based student website that publishes multimedia digital content developed by its student news staff and students at large. Its web address is http://bunow.bloomu.edu/.

Since its launch in April 2008, BU Now has attracted 33,990 unique visitors and posted over 500 stories with some stories reaching over 5,000 views.

This lecture is free and open to the public. For more information, contact David S. Heineman, assistant professor of communications, at (570) 389-4188 or at dheinema@bloomu.edu.

The 2009 report is the 6th in a 6-year series beginning in 2003. It analyzes 9 major media sectors across 5 areas: audience, economics, newsroom investment, ownership and digital journalism. Its analysis is based on ‘aggregating as much publicly available data as possible,” and PEJ’s own extensive content analyses. At 180,000 words, or 700 plus printed pages, and dozens of charts it is mammoth. Go figure: that’s over one million words during the 6-year project! The online edition allows us true stat-addicts to sift the data and create our own multi-variable charts. Cool, huh?

So…what is the ‘state of the news media?’ PEJ concludes that the 6th annual report “is also the bleakest.” While equal numbers of news seekers still seem to value the practices and values of traditional journalism, they are increasingly abandoning legacy media as sources of traditional news, and migrating to ‘on demand,’ online platforms. These online platforms deliver news when audiences want it, in formats they want. These formats include wi-fi, mobile, social networking sites, blogs, video, microblogs, RSS and e-mails. News audiences now “hunt and gather what they want when they want it.” Additionally, many of these news seekers then share, or repurpose the content through the very same platforms they initially hunted.

Thus, the crisis is less about audience size, and more about audience migration, and the resulting shifts in platform revenue from legacy media to online media. The gains in online platform revenue are nowhere equal to the losses in legacy media revenue. PEJ describes it is as the “decoupling …of advertising from news.” Add to this today’s economic collapse, which has “at least doubled the revenue losses”, caused by the migration of audiences from legacy media and you start to appreciate the depth of the crisis.

So what are the media habits of these online news hunters and gatherers that are precipitating such change? PEJ concludes that while those that use the Internet has remained relatively constant for the last several years at 70% to 75% of the country’s population, they increasingly ‘hunt and gather’ for news more frequently and for longer periods of time.

Nielsen's ranking of the top 10 news sites.

Moreover, online platforms seem to be more popular sources of news when compared to most traditional news sources. According to a Pew Research Center survey (August 2008) 37% of the total Internet users go online for news at least 3 times a week, compared to the 29% that watch network nightly news and the 22% that watch network morning shows. Another PRC survey (December 2008) found 40% relied on online sources for national and international news compared to 35% that relied on newspapers. Where do they seek their online news? PEJ reports the top 5 most popular news sites in 2008 according to Nielsen Online are MSNBC, Yahoo! News, CNN, AOL News and The New York Times.

As to the future of legacy media, PEJ concludes, “There are growing doubts…about whether the generation in charge has the vision and boldness to reinvent the industry.” I agree. The skills necessary for traditional journalism don’t readily translate into online entrepreneurship. The future of legacy media is tied to their ability to forge increased collaborations with innovative online partners. And that…means more excitement for us stat addicts! Stay tuned.

Dr. Richard Ganahl is a professor in mass communications at Bloomsburg University, PA. His column GANAHL ON MEDIA is an occasional column about media issues. Ganahl is a former media manager, publisher, entrepreneur and consultant. He is co-editor with Dr. Louisa Ha of the award-winning Webcasting Worldwide (2007), and the founding faculty advisor of BU Now, a multi-media, student-managed media blog site. You can email him at rganahl@bloomu.edu.

In a word…the crisis is dire. Hopefully it will get better, but this may take a very long time.

Consider total reported advertising revenues for the first half of 2009. Advertising Age reports that overall ad revenues measured by Nielsen are down almost 16% during the first 6 months 0f 2009 when compared with the same period in 2008.

The only two media categories among the 19 measured categories reporting increases during the first half of 2009 are Cable TV with a 1.5% increase and Spanish Language Cable TV with a 0.6% increase. Internet ad spending is down 1% during this period. Please see the table titled Year-to-Year Change in Ad Spend, by Media published September 2, 2009 in Advertising Age.

The media most impacted by this crisis are newspapers. Richard Pe’rez-Pena reports in The New York Times that newspaper revenues fell almost 29% during the first half of 2009 according to the Newspaper Association of America. Also, the NAA reports that the current rate of decline in newspaper ad revenues is accelerating from the 2007 decline of 16.7%, and the 2006 decline 7.9%.

More over, the current precipitous decline represents long-term erosion in newspaper ad revenues. Ryan Chittum concludes in the Columbia Journalism Review that “(the 2009 decline) understates just how awful the numbers are…You have to go back to 1965 to find a year with revenue lower in 2009 dollars than what this year is projected to be.” Do the math…newspapers are an industry with revenues little improved for almost 45 years ago!

Declines in newspaper circulation mirror its revenue declines. The NAA reports paid circulation for daily newspapers totals 48.497 million in 2008. This translates to a 41.8% penetration level of the total 116 million US households in 2008. The last time paid circulation for daily newspapers totaled 48 million was in 1945! Paid circulation for daily newspapers peaked at 63.34 million in 1984.

There are several websites devoted to chronicling newspapers’ traumas. One of the most interesting is Paul Gillin’s Newspaper Death Watch. The NDW tracks those forces that Gillin thinks will “ultimately destroy 95% of American major metropolitan newspapers.” These forces include newspapers’ high fixed costs such as equipment, paper and labor.

Gillin calls himself an optimist and thinks “this painful decline will give birth to a new model of journalism built upon aggregation and reader-generated content.” His site lists 12 metropolitan dailies including the Rocky Mountain News and the Baltimore Sun that have closed since the site’s beginning in March 2007. It also lists 8 dailies including the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and the Ann Arbor News that have ‘adopted hybrid online/print or online-only models.’

Another site, paper cuts uses mapping software to depict ‘layoffs and buyouts at U.S. newspapers.’ St. Louis designer, journalist and site creator Erica Smith reports almost 32,000 newspaper jobs have been lost, and 31 daily and weekly newspapers have closed since June 2007. The site also reports salary and benefit reductions at various newspapers.

Of course other media are also severely impacted. Jason Fells reports in FOLIO that according to the Publishers Information Bureau consumer magazine ad pages fell almost 30% in the 2nd quarter of 2009 compared to the same 2008 time period. This compares to the 11.7% ad page decrease in 2008 when compared to 2007.

And, what about media’s future? How guarded are the predictions? Pe’rez-Pena reports in the NYT that while the rate of decline in advertising revenue seems to be slowing, many analysts think it will be 2010 before we see any substantial improvement.

Dr. Richard Ganahl is a professor in mass communications at Bloomsburg University, PA. His column GANAHL ON MEDIA is an occasional column about media issues. Ganahl is a former media manager, publisher, entrepreneur and consultant. He is co-editor with Dr. Louisa Ha of the award-winning Webcasting Worldwide (2007), and the founding faculty advisor of BU Now, a multi-media, student-managed media blog site.

“The Vagina Monologues”, along with “A Memory, A Monologue, A Rant, and Prayer” also deal with serious issues about rape, battery, incest, female genital mutilation and sexual slavery. More so than “The Vagina Monologues”, M.M.R.P. goes deeper in these issues and is very informative of the violence that exists worldwide. Various artists who felt it was necessary to raise awareness to audiences everywhere wrote M.M.R.P. Local volunteers and college students produce annual benefit performances of “The Vagina Monologues” and M.M.R.P. to raise awareness and funds for anti-violence groups within their own communities and our very own Bloomsburg University is one of them.
From February 3 to February 7, 2009 Bloomsburg University held “The Vagina Monologues” and M.M.R.P. It was performed by primarily Bloomsburg students and some volunteers from the Bloomsburg community including, Toni Ann Yates who is responsible for introducing our campus to V-Day.

About nine years ago Yates went to Prof. Karen Anselm and asked her if she would be interested getting Bloomsburg University involved in “The Vagina Monologues” and without hesitation Anselm agreed. The play has been running for ten years and Bloomsburg University has been involved for eight years. We have been a part of V-Day from the very beginning thanks to Yates who still performs in the plays to this day. The play is sponsored by Bloomsburg University and is always organized by students. The past production in early 2009 was organized by Dianna Santos, a student at Bloomsburg University and advised by Anselm. “The Vagina Monologues” and M.M.R.P that are performed at our college benefit two different anti-violence centers in our area, The Woman’s Center Inc. in Bloomsburg and Beyond Violence Inc. in Berwick; Columbia Montour Family Health. This year the play raised $1,000 and all proceeds were given to these two corporations. “Vagina Monologues” and M.M.R.P have been known to raise as much as $5,000 in previous years. Our audiences are dwindling and so is the amount of money the plays have raised and this is why I chose to raise my own awareness within our campus.

I am Andrea Brookman, a sophomore at Bloomsburg University and was a first time performer in “The Vagina Monologues”. I heard about the plays from a college that I transferred from and I was under the impression that it was just a comedy. When I transferred to Bloomsburg University I realized that they too sponsored “The Vagina Monologues” and M.M.R.P. and that the production was coming up in February. At first, I was reluctant to get involved because of the racy topics that the play discussed but once I realized that it was so much more than woman talking about their vaginas and that it was a production that benefited women’s centers in our area I knew it was something I had to do. Getting my feet wet by being on stage for the first time was something I wanted to do as an actress but it was the charity that was the deciding factor for me to be in the “Vagina Monologues”. I came into the play thinking I had it all figured out but I had no clue what I was getting myself into. This performance changed my way of thinking and heightened my level of understanding. I had no clue about the abuse that some women and children face not only nationally but also worldwide. It doesn’t matter who you are, this play will move you.

Abbi Parker who has participated in the “Vagina Monologues” for three years said, “ The Vagina Monologues has two purposes. It’s not just about the charity but for the cast it’s a bonding experience. It’s empowering and for the audience it’s shocking and informative. It’s a yearly event, come and see it next year if you didn’t catch it this year, it’s an important thing.”

V-Day is growing at a rapid pace throughout the world, in 120 countries from Europe to Asia, Africa and the Caribbean, and all of North America. In 2001, V-Day was named one of Worth Magazine’s “100 Best Charities” and in 2006 one of Marie Claire Magazine’s Top Ten Charities. In ten years, the V-Day movement has raised over 60 million dollars. All I ask of you is to help keep V-Day alive in Bloomsburg University. You too can make a difference.