Media stories of note for Thursday, March 21, 2013:

Earlier this week Allyson Bird blogged about why she left newspapers. Her post has since gone viral. She tired of the extended hours for relatively little pay, emotionally exhaustion and under-appreciation. "I left news, not because I didn’t love it enough, but because I loved it too much – and I knew it was going to ruin me," she writes. Bird, a former Palm Beach Post reporter, now writes more happily for a hospital fundraising arm.

A new study from Deloitte suggests Americans are rapidly becoming "digital omnivores," owning a laptop, tablet and smartphone. Some 26 per cent had all three at the end of 2012, up from 10 per cent only a year earlier. The result, Hollywood Reporter says, is a massive growth in streamed video online. 

Emily Bell, the former Guardian online director and current director of the Tow Center for digital media at Columbia University, adds her perspective to new British press regulations. She says they're seriously out of touch with the way the Internet has changed journalism. As a result it fails to address privacy concerns and press freedom attacks in a connected society.

Robert Cringely, writing for InfoWorld, writes about the "death" of Web journalism at the hands of advertisers. He notes the rapid rise of so-named "native advertising" or sponsored content and the increasing number of publishers who are prepared to blur the "fine line between shills and scribes."
 
 

Deloitte has updated its 2009 predictions for media.

The big new issue is the cost of hosting user-generated content. Deloitte suggests some larger firms will spend $100 million doing so this year, with no real business model to generate significant revenue.

The two upsides: Mobile advertising is emerging and 3D is a possible breakthrough technology this year.

 
 

Deloitte has published a recent report identifying the need for editorial and economic change within the newspaper industry.
"Print is not dead. Neither is it in danger of extinction. But it has to adapt to face a more demanding environment that could change publishers into far more diverse and sophisticated organisations."
The Financial Times, in writing about the report and Deloitte, suggests the company is predicting one in 10 newspapers will either falter or cut the number of editions in 2009.

 

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