UK shows the US how it's done in the online journalism arena

Posted by Helena Humphrey on November 2, 2009 at 11:25 AM

On Sunday, Observer columnist Peter Preston raised a difficult but pertinent question: in the current economic climate which has set about ravaging much of newspaper industry on both sides of the Atlantic, who is suffering more ... the British or American press? Whether his claims are prejudiced, patriotic or otherwise, Preston does share some compelling data.

First and foremost, Preston reports the latest in a line of none-too-encouraging US circulation figures: o verall newspaper circulation stateside is down 10.6% on average year on year. Furthermore, America's biggest seller, USA Today, has taken a 17% nosedive down to nearly 400,000. In contrast, Murdoch's Wall Street Journal is riding high, currently enjoying a circulation of over 2 million. But what justification does Preston give for these facts? Citing a Columbia Journalism Review piece concerning the 'triumph of "the Anglo-Australian model"', Preston believes the British press to be generally more upbeat, sharper and concise - and as a result reaping the (semi) rewards.

Going on to look at online statistics, Preston finds much of the same again. Last week's big media story, with the Washington Post having seen its tally of unique users overtaken by web start up Huffington Post for the first time, may have initially raised a few eyebrows- but on closer inspection, the news came as little surprise. Why? Well, industry insiders have long been aware of the fact that print news is losing out to digital news, and that custom-built web-only vehicles have the ability to elbow more ponderous offerings from newspaper sites offering conventional coverage 24/7 aside ... and what's more the most recent Nielsen lists confirm this - at least for the US anyway, with only three sites in the top 10 of wider news sources and the leading paper, the New York Times, having just half the users of Yahoo News. It's a different story for British media outlets however, with three UK newspaper contenders in the wider top 30 list of multi-category champions.

Guardian.co.uk scores 6.04m US users in this Nielsen league, with the Telegraph and Mail (at 5.6m and 5.05m respectively) some way behind, all showing annual US growth rates of between 26% (for the Mail) and 51% (for the Guardian). The Telegraph has around as many users outside Britain as the Washington Post has in the whole of the US. Preston states that if you switched all UK players over into the US newspaper category, they'd all find a place in the top 10. Tabloid websites are still enjoying continually high levels of web traffic, with The Mirror and the Sun developing "cheery, cheeky characters", often absent from the American counterparts making them seem too serious and fusty.

The data poses broader and perhaps more serious questions too however, such as why news aggregators are overtaking newspapers when it comes to attracting unique visits, why newspapers on the web are simply not read with the time and attention you'd expect as with their print versions, and why social media - Twitter or Facebook - are fast becoming the latest form of "citizen" journalism?

Source: Observer