Newspapers

How did the press cover the President’s State of the Union address? Did it emphasize his domestic policy agenda or did Iraq policy grab the headlines? Did the media focus on his appeal for another chance on Iraq or his defiance on that subject? A PEJ review of front-page headlines on the day after finds the answers.

What are the best newspapers in America? The question used to be hotly debated. But when Poynter.org readers were asked to weigh in recently there was tepid response. Does that reflect a stagnating newspaper industry? We offer the results of that effort here. But maybe the more interesting, or at least refreshing question, is what are the best news web sites.

Three decades later, the Washington Post’s reporting on the Watergate scandal is still spoken about with a hushed reverence as a singular journalistic achievement. The legend and mythology surrounding Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein continue to grow, even as the industry itself has changed.

How did newspapers play the Nov 7 election on their front page? Did they see an ideological realignment in the country, or some deeper shift? A review of the day-after headlines in 230 newspapers across the country reveals that it was nothing quite so dramatic and many tread closer to Sergeant Joe Friday’s “Just the Facts, Ma’am.”

America’s alternative weeklies may have once conjured up coverage of sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll. But as the papers themselves reach middle age, survey numbers show their readers have aged with them—getting married and having kids—which poses a serious challenge: younger upstart publications could steal their readers and advertisers.

In the eighth of our roundtable discussions on the future of the news media, representatives of the alternative newsweekly industry survey the changes facing these once comfortably niched papers.

In this, the third of the Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism roundtables on the future of the news media, six experts from inside the newspaper industry discuss its future, its fate, and the changes it must make to survive.

Overview A decade ago, just one-in-fifty Americans got the news with some regularity from what was then a brand new source ­ the internet. Today, nearly one-in-three regularly get news online. But the growth of the online news audience has slowed considerably since 2000, particularly among the very young, who are now somewhat less likely […]

In the third of our roundtables on the future of the news media, industry experts analyze the health of the newspaper business and offer their ideas on what it can and should do to survive.

A new PEJ study finds sports newspaper fronts markedly different from other section fronts.