In civil rights story that seems better reported abroad than at home, New York City’s proposal to ban photos in the subway is still moving forward, if Sunday’s photographer protest is an indication.
Under the proposed ban, photographers must obtain a permit to take still or video pictures on subways. In a NY Times article which ran when I was in NYC for WWW2004, officials said that tourists would not be exempt from paying fines under the proposal released 20 May.
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The latest Pew Research Center report suggests that both audiences and the news that they consume have become more politicized.
In concert with that trend, consumption of news from all major sources (local TV, network evening news and news magazines, newspaper and magazines) continues a steady downward march. Only 82% reported getting “any news yesterday” (online news not included) — down from 90% 10 years ago.
Good news for digital media: online news consumption has increased dramatically, from 13% saying that they get online news three or more days a week in 1998 to 29% in 2004. This could be a factor in the move towards online news sites profitability. I’ll look at the online news audience separately.
Americans are skeptical (cynical?); more than half (53%) agree with the statement: “I often don’t trust what news organizations are saying.”
Other report highlights include:
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Blogads ran a survey 17-19 May 2004, trying to get some data on blog readers. More than 17,000 people completed the survey; results are now online.
These self-reported data suffer the same weaknesses as early Georgia Tech surveys of WWW users. With that as a caveat, however, the data are interesting — whether viewed in the aggregate or by demographic (women, men, various political party affiliations).
A key question was “why do you read blogs?”
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Giving credence to the adage that great minds think alike, Time and Newsweek editors picked the same image of former President Reagan for their commemorative issues this week. Digital media students might be more interested in the dramatic difference in flesh tone (Newsweek’s image gives Reagan a “tan” appearance while the Time image appears “ruddy”). Editors insist that the image was not altered.
Links: NYT (8 June – requires registration) [Thanks to Newsroom-L]
I can tell by looking at my posting rate for June that I’m in crunch mode as Spring Quarter ends this week. This past Saturday, I led an Introduction to FlashMX2004 workshop. Graduation for Communication students is Thursday at the Hub.
And Friday we have the last Digital Media Working Group presentation of the year, Blogging for the Rest of Us featuring Bonnie A. Nardi, UCal-Irvine.
