No Easy Fix for News Media Struggles, With Sinclair Seen Overshadowing Consolidation Need

Noting the Senate Commerce Committee last held a hearing in 2009 on the state of journalism, Hassan said "we're long overdue" for a national discussion on supporting journalism. She said freedom of the press is “under a steady and worsening barrage of attacks," from rising "fake news" claims against legitimate news organizations and shrinking newsrooms, to a growth of actual fake news being disseminated by provocateurs, conspiracy theorists and foreign nations.

Newspapers are in a continuing state of decline, with weekday circulation falling 9 percent in the past year, though some major outlets like The Washington Post have been growing, said Pew Research Center Journalism Research Director Amy Mitchell. Newsroom personnel is down 15 percent over the past three years, with more than a third of papers with a circulation of 50,000 or more having had layoffs in the past year, she said. The number of daily papers with a staffer assigned part or full time to the statehouse also is waning, with fewer than a third having such a correspondent.

The largest threat to local journalism is from Facebook and Google in the form of their stranglehold on digital advertising, Lougee said. He said as the print advertising market has collapsed, TV stations have filled the void, particularly in investigative reporting: But the local broadcasting business model is under the same stresses “and we can't count on billionaires and their philanthropy to save it.” He said a broadcaster's ability to invest in journalism is based on scale, and called it "painful" that broadcast consolidation has become a political topic. Without mentioning Sinclair's practice of dictating some content be carried groupwide, he said affiliate owners like Tegna and others don't follow it. Google and Facebook didn't comment.

Mitchell said if there's a new business model for journalism, it's "yet to be found" and the strains on the broadcast revenue structure aren't as pronounced yet as they are for print. Society of Professional Journalists Executive Director Alison Bethel McKenzie said some areas of print, like free papers in metropolitan markets that focus primarily on physical distribution instead of digital, are still thriving, as are some niche and minority community publications. She said the future will see fewer papers and journalists, but the medium won't die off completely, particularly in smaller and rural communities.

Some of newsrooms' woes have been self-inflicted in that they haven't embraced new technologies faster, Lougee said. He said "one-man bands" of on-air talent that also shoot their own video have become the norm, leading to more journalists in TV stations than a few years ago, even as overall employment at those stations has declined.

A federal shield law would be "a step in the right direction," better allowing journalists to protect their sources, said Bethel McKenzie. She said Congress and the White House could "stop fighting the media at every turn," especially since state and local governments and other nations will often look to the federal government and follow suit on how it treats journalism.

Lougee said it's difficult for Congress to stay current with business realities. He said cross-ownership of papers and TV stations would have helped the industry a decade ago, when the idea was broached, and the FCC is now headed that direction but "it's way too late."

Capitol Hill coverage traditionally has meant good access to members of Congress and others, but the past year or so has seen "some incremental encroachments" on that access, said BuzzFeed D.C. bureau Chief Kate Nocera. She said "fake news” rhetoric has made the journalism job harder, with even mistakes leading to people “screaming 'fake news, fake news" and media outlets still not sure how to deal with it.