Respected U.S. academic Michael Schudson and former Washington Post executive editor Leonard Downie released a major report Monday: The Reconstruction of American Journalism.

Here's some of the setup:

Newspapers and television news are not going to vanish in the foreseeable future, despite frequent predictions of their imminent extinction. But they will play diminished roles in an emerging and still rapidly changing world of digital journalism, in which the means of news reporting are being re-invented, the character of news is being reconstructed, and reporting is being distributed across a greater number and variety of news organizations, new and old.

The questions that this transformation raises are simple enough: What is going to take the place of what is being lost, and can the new array of news media report on our nation and our communities as well as—or better than—journalism has until now? More importantly—and the issue central to this report—what should be done to shape this new landscape, to help assure that the essential elements of independent, original, and credible news reporting are preserved? We believe that choices made now and in the near future will not only have far-reaching effects but, if the choices are sound, significantly beneficial ones.

Some answers are already emerging. The Internet and those seizing its potential have made it possible—and often quite easy—to gather and distribute news more widely in new ways. This is being done not only by surviving newspapers and commercial television, but by startup online news organizations, nonprofit investigative reporting projects, public broadcasting stations, university-run news services, community news sites with citizen participation, and bloggers. Even government agencies and activist groups are playing a role. Together, they are creating not only a greater variety of independent reporting missions but different definitions of news.

Reporting is becoming more participatory and collaborative. The ranks of news gatherers now include not only newsroom staffers, but freelancers, university faculty members, students, and citizens. Financial support for reporting now comes not only from advertisers and subscribers, but also from foundations, individual philanthropists, academic and government budgets, special interests, and voluntary contributions from readers and viewers. There is increased competition among the different kinds of news gatherers, but there also is more cooperation, a willingness to share resources and reporting with former competitors. That increases the value and impact of the news they produce, and creates new identities for reporting while keeping old, familiar ones alive. “I have seen the future, and it is mutual,” says Alan Rusbridger, editor of Britain’s widely read Guardian newspaper. He sees a collaborative journalism emerging, what he calls a “mutualized newspaper.”

The Internet has made all this possible, but it also has undermined the traditional marketplace support for American journalism. The Internet’s easily accessible free information and low-cost advertising have loosened the hold of large, near-monopoly news organizations on audiences and advertisers. As this report will explain, credible independent news reporting cannot flourish without news organizations of various kinds, including the print and digital reporting operations of surviving newspapers. But it is unlikely that any but the smallest of these news organizations can be supported primarily by existing online revenue. That is why—at the end of this report—we will explore a variety and mixture of ways to support news reporting, which must include non-market sources like philanthropy and government.

CJR.org had the speech, an executive summary, reaction, a setup from Columbia j-school dean Nicholas Lemann, and a podcast from Downie and Schudson.

Columbia j-student Vadim Lavrusik rounded up some reaction.

Steve Buttry of Gazette Communications also sounded off in a post entitled American media need innovation, not subsidy:

Here’s what the report does not address in any meaningful way:

• The role of social media in the future of journalism.
• The failure of media companies to develop new business models.
• The possibility of developing new business models that rely on the free market, rather than charity or taxpayers.

The report does discuss the paid-content controversy as well as some other efforts to develop business models, such as the range of new news organizations in San Diego. The report doesn’t mention the American Press Institute’s Newspaper Next project (in which I was involved), which spurred a round of innovative projects but did not, to my knowledge, fundamentally change the way any newspaper companies operate. The report does not mention proposals for new business models that wouldn’t depend on federal intervention, such as my own Blueprint for the Complete Community Connection, the City University of New York’s New Business Models for News project or Steve Outing’s suggestion of memberships. 

The truth is that media organizations are clinging stubbornly to their long-established business models. The most dramatic efforts at innovation have come from startups. The report describes a pretty vibrant ecosystem of small community journalism startups and investigative reporting projects without ever making a convincing case that they won’t provide the public-affairs journalism that our country and our communities need.

For the most part, the economic assumptions of this report are that advertising is in the tank and not likely to come back and advertising, donations or charging for content are the only possible meaningful, so we need help from the feds. The possibility of moving beyond advertising to becoming the digital marketplace for our communities gets only a passing mention on Page 75, quickly followed by the unsupported conclusion that efforts to find new business models “will no longer produce the kinds of revenues or profits that had subsidized large reporting staffs, regardless of what new business models they evolve.”

Case closed. We better put our hands out to the federal government.

Long-time online media opiner Steve Outing thinks the real audience for the report are philanthropists and foundations:

As the authors make clear, much of the new news ecosystem — the part doing the serious watchdog and investigative journalism that advertisers don’t especially want to pay for — will be non-profit, or low-profit. For this segment of the news sector to grow (and it must), philanthropic money will be critical. Such news organizations can’t rely on sugar daddies forever, but they’ll need it initially while they work toward and invent a model for long-term sustainability.

(I am not dismissing for-profit enterprises springing up out of the ashes of old media, and neither do Downie and Schudson — though they don’t give a whole lot of time in their report to for-profit solutions to the news crisis.)

I do hope that “The Reconstruction of American Journalism” is widely distributed and read by community foundations, national foundations that have not yet made grants within the news and information sectors, and various other philanthropists. Because this report will serve to educate them on a problem that they should know about, and to persuade them to join the party to find solutions.

That's a start. The bottom of Buttry's blog post links to some other reaction.