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Intro | Five Major Trends | Content Analysis | Audience | Economics | Ownership | News Investment | Public Attitudes | Conclusion
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Author's Note
People can approach the material in this report several ways.
Users can go directly to the media about which they are most
concerned - local television news, for example - and drive
vertically through it. Or they can focus on a particular issue,
such as audience trends, and move horizontally across different
media sectors to see where Americans are going for news. Or
they can move across the overviews of each sector. They can
flip back and forth between our narrative and the interactive
chart and tabular material. Or they can work through the statistics
for themselves, making their own charts, answering their own
questions, in effect creating their own report.
The report is substantial. It runs more than 600 pages in
print and includes extensive tabular appendices. There are
more than 700 detailed footnoted source citations to help
guide users to original sources.
In addition to this overview, each sector of media is subject
to a detailed narrative and synthesis of the data that we
hope answers most of the major questions about underlying
trends and outlines what is unknown as well.
Our desire in this study is to answer questions we imagine
any reader would find important, to help clarify the strengths
and weaknesses of the available data, and to identify what
is not yet answerable.
We have attempted, to the best of our ability and the limits
of time, to seek out multiple sources of information for comparison
where they exist. This year we have added new sources to those
in the 2004 report, refined the methodology of the content
study and we think, improved our overall understanding.
This study is the work of many collaborators, including more
than 25 outside readers who are expert in different media
sectors, five research partners and dozens of research groups
whose data we purchased or got permission to use. The chapters
were written by PEJ. The chapter on newspapers was co-written
by Rick Edmonds of the Poynter Institute and PEJ staff. The
content analysis was executed by Princeton Survey Research
Associates International, The School of Journalism at Michigan
State University and The Institute for Communication Research
of the College of Communication & Information Sciences
as The University of Alabama under the direction of the Project.
The methodology and statistical work were supervised by Esther
Thorson, associate dean for graduate studies and research
at the University of Missouri School of Journalism. Evan Jenkins,
a longtime journalist, currently a consulting editor of the
Columbia Journalism Review, was the copy editor. We owe a
significant debt, as well, to our sister group, the Committee
of Concerned Journalists and its chairman, Bill Kovach. More
details on their contributions are available here,
along with the methodology.
Our focus in this report is on journalism, not media as a
whole. There are various important trends in media - such
as the implications of consolidation or cable technology on
nonfiction entertainment, on music or on drama - that are
not covered here.
This annual report was designed with various audiences in
mind: journalists, media executives, financial analysts, scholars,
students and, most importantly, citizens. We hope it proves
useful now and throughout the year for anyone interested in
American journalism.
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Intro | Five Major Trends | Content Analysis | Audience | Economics | Ownership | News Investment | Public Attitudes | Conclusion
| Author's Note
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