Online media covering Washington has soared over 400 percent in the last six years, a trend that further demonstrates how the nation’s appetite for national news has shifted to digital platforms, according to a comprehensive review of the D.C. press corps from the Pew Research Center.
In a survey for its Journalism & Media branch, Pew said that the number of digital-only news staff accredited by the Senate press galleries has grown from just 31 in 2009 to 133 or more, driven by specialized media and bigger national outfits like Huffington Post.
And for the first time, digital and “niche” reporters assigned to cover specific issues outnumber reporters from “legacy media” like wire services and newspapers, 589-576.
“Reporters for niche outlets, some of which offer highly specialized information services at premium subscription rates, now fill more seats in the U.S. Senate Press Gallery than do daily newspaper reporters. As recently as the late 1990s, daily newspaper staff outnumbered such journalists by more than two-to-one,” said Pew.
Majority of federal govt news coverage in local newspapers studied comes from wire services https://t.co/jE4E0elBLC pic.twitter.com/2BWMrcL7Up
— Pew Research Journalism (@pewjournalism) December 3, 2015
“Also increasing in number are reporters for digital news publishers – some of which focus on niche subjects, others on a broad range of general interest topics. In 2009, fewer than three dozen journalists working for digital-native outlets were accredited to the Press Gallery. By 2014, that number had risen to more than 130 – roughly a four-fold increase,” it added.
Pew’s 12-page report also found that out of town daily newspapers have greatly cutback Washington bureaus, and that even papers with bureaus mostly run wire copy on Washington stories.
“When looking at how these different types of reporting add up in sheer volume for readers, wire stories carry the weight, both in the papers with and without D.C. correspondents. Fully 52 percent of the federal government stories produced by papers supporting a D.C. correspondent came from wire services – more than six times that of the 8 percent of coverage coming from D.C reporters. Stories from D.C. reporters were also less than half as prevalent as stories produced by other staff writers (18 percent) or other news outlets (22 percent). Papers without a D.C. reporter produced about the same amount of coverage, with wire services playing an even more critical role – providing 62 percent of all coverage about the federal government,” said Pew.
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected].
