Spring Break
Bud Ward lectures students on the passing era of print journalism
Kate Monohan
Issue date: 2/6/09 Section: News
Listeners left Konover Auditorium at the Dodd Center with puzzled looks on their faces Thursday. Bud Ward, editor of the Yale Forum on Climate Change and the Media, spoke in the first of this year's Edwin Way Teale lectures. His topic was "Bridging the Science: Journalism Gap in a Time of Epochal Change," though many in attendance seemed to feel the moniker was misleading.
Though Ward has dealt in his past work with helping journalists understand scientific jargon, the lecture stayed almost entirely focused on the evolution of mass media and the death of print journalism.
The Teale lecture series is meant to focus on nature and environmental issues. Bud Ward has extensive experience in the fields of climate change, journalism and natural resources. In January, Ward was named the "Climate Change Communicator of The Year" by George Mason University's Center for Climate Change Communications. He has published three books on environmental issues, and has been a frequent environmental analyst on NPR's "All Things Considered" and "Morning Edition" shows. Because of Ward's science background, the packed audience comprised mainly of science and journalism students, though the science students probably did not come away with much to discuss in their classes afterwards.
Instead of science, Ward discussed the decline of print journalism by showing graphs, statistics and cartoons to support his point. He stated that in 1950 there were 1,772 daily newspapers in the U.S. with 53.8 million readers while, despite the population doubling in the interim, in 2006 there were only 1,452 dailies with 51.8 million readers. He also showed that in 2008, the Internet surpassed newspapers as the preferred source of news among Americans.
He highlighted a "splintering of audiences across more media," instead of a reliance on newspapers that cover all kinds of topics. Instead, media will start to specialize in niche media sources, like Craigslist or Monster.com instead of the paper's daily classified ads. The industry will also undergo what Ward called a "hyper-localization:" a change from the use of the wire services at some papers to only covering important local news stories.
Though Ward has dealt in his past work with helping journalists understand scientific jargon, the lecture stayed almost entirely focused on the evolution of mass media and the death of print journalism.
The Teale lecture series is meant to focus on nature and environmental issues. Bud Ward has extensive experience in the fields of climate change, journalism and natural resources. In January, Ward was named the "Climate Change Communicator of The Year" by George Mason University's Center for Climate Change Communications. He has published three books on environmental issues, and has been a frequent environmental analyst on NPR's "All Things Considered" and "Morning Edition" shows. Because of Ward's science background, the packed audience comprised mainly of science and journalism students, though the science students probably did not come away with much to discuss in their classes afterwards.
Instead of science, Ward discussed the decline of print journalism by showing graphs, statistics and cartoons to support his point. He stated that in 1950 there were 1,772 daily newspapers in the U.S. with 53.8 million readers while, despite the population doubling in the interim, in 2006 there were only 1,452 dailies with 51.8 million readers. He also showed that in 2008, the Internet surpassed newspapers as the preferred source of news among Americans.
He highlighted a "splintering of audiences across more media," instead of a reliance on newspapers that cover all kinds of topics. Instead, media will start to specialize in niche media sources, like Craigslist or Monster.com instead of the paper's daily classified ads. The industry will also undergo what Ward called a "hyper-localization:" a change from the use of the wire services at some papers to only covering important local news stories.
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