Do you think that the majority of news (print and online) will be free in the future? 

In this period of upheaval for the newspaper industry’s platforms and methods, respondents were split, but a significant majority, 48%, believed that news will follow its current trend and that most of it would eventually be free (39% didn’t). The future of paid-for daily model is clearly put into question, even by those who produce it.

Since the trend towards free news has been exacerbated by the free-online news model, it’s not surprising that respondents with important web traffic (200k+) were more likely to believe news would be free in the future - 52%.
Respondents with smaller websites (<200k) fell into the norm - 47%. Those with no websites were less likely to accept the trend towards free news, at 43%, but the relative proximity of the figures shows that most respondents believed in this trend. 
63% of respondents from North America, where free online news is widespread, believed in the trend. As opposed to respondents from South America and Africa, 38% and 39%, whose audiences often have lesser access to the Web, or where print paid-for newspapers are still the main focus and asset of newspaper companies. 

Looking 10 years into the future, what will be the most common way of reading the news in your community? 

 

The answers varied greatly depending on the regional factor, probably because news platforms are so dependent on material resources, both for newspaper companies and for their audiences. Thus Africans were the least likely to see online as the main news medium (19%) and the most likely to see print as still the most common platform (43%). As opposed to North America and Western Europe for example, wealthy promoters of new technologies, which believed in online 42% of the time and in print only at 24% and 35% respectively (West Europe is more attached to its print newspaper tradition).

It could seem paradoxical that editors expect news to be free and online when their newspaper model remains the paid-for daily. News executives are overwhelmingly optimistic for their newspaper’s future (85%, see question 11), but they also predict a radically different emerging model, in which newspapers won’t be on paper and traditionally paid-for news will be free.

What seems to be a paradox is simply a public misperception: editors are optimistic about their newspaper as a business, as news providers and as a public service, not about their newspaper as a print platform. This is why more and more newspaper companies are renaming themselves to reflect this definition: some newspapers become media companies specialized in news delivery. 

Over the next 10 years, do you think that opinion and analysis pages will: 

Two thirds (66%) of the respondents believed opinion and analysis pages would increase: most respondents already foresaw (and approved) the upcoming evolution of the morphology and content of newspapers, which will be less about factual news and more about analysis and commentary.

There was little variation between the answers of editors-in-chief and those of news executives, respectively 65% and 67%, indicating that both categories seem to agree on the editorial aims in the next 10 years.
Respondents from North America and Western Europe believed in this increase (76% and 69% respectively) more than did respondents from Eastern Europe or Asia (52% and 60% respectively). Possibly because there is already a huge variety of news sources in the first two regions, and newspapers will have to distinguish themselves not through their original reporting, but through the strength of their opinions and analyses about news. 

Over the next 10 years, do you think that the quality of journalism is going to:

A large majority thought that journalism’s quality would improve (51% versus 26% who thought it would worsen). Yet while this is positive, it also means 49% of respondents didn’t affirm that journalism would improve: the finding illustrates both the relative confidence and the uncertainties of this transitional period for the newspaper industry.

Of course, those respondents from newspapers whose circulations have decreased were less likely to believe in the improvement of journalism quality, 43%, (compared to 61% for newspapers whose circulation increased). Perhaps because part of these newspapers’ circulation drops were caused by the emergence of alternative forms of journalism, often of lesser professionalism or journalistic quality (freesheets, blogs, online news portals).
Along with Eastern Europeans (36%), only West Europeans (42%) had less than 50% of respondents believe in the improvement of journalism, a sign of West Europeans’ skepticism.


For the full Newsroom Barometer results and commentary plus the complete, analytical guide to the monumental transformations taking place in the newspaper industry, please consult the print or PDF version of Trends in Newsrooms 2007 (http://www.trends-in-newsrooms.org/home.php), released 27th March 2007. From free papers to e-papers, citizen journalism to social media and integrated newsrooms to Internet aggregators, it has everything you need to know to direct your paper towards a multimedia future.

Read part 1 – Nobody has killed the newspaper
Read part 2 - How editors view emerging forms of journalism (free papers, citizen journalism, online journalism and more)
Read part 3 – How editors view their newspaper in 10 years
Read part 4 – Newsroom priorities, threats to editorial independence
Read part 5 – Who participated in the Newsroom Barometer?
Read part 6 – Newsroom Barometer: analysis by John Zogby and comment by Jeff Jarvis