Nielsen/NetRatings is reporting an increase in U.S. newspaper web traffic. In fact, this year's report shows that web traffic at newspaper websites rose 3.7 percent over last year.
According to Reuters, "More than 59 million people, or 37.1 percent of all active Internet users, visited the papers' Web sites during the quarter, up from 56.9 million a year ago..."
No surprises right? Not quite, some corporate news outlets are still struggling with trying to figure out what the digital age means to their bottom lines.
The pressure is on now in the newsroom as well as the classroom to convince laggards that the Internet is more than just a place to shovel content from print to Web.
As an educator, the opportunity to train future journalists to understand the complexities of news gathering operations and the dissemination of the news in a digital age is both exciting and challenging. Whatever the future may hold, we (the media and the educators that train journalists) must continue to emphasize the importance of a free press in a democratic society. The media, no matter what format it may take, must continue to question and speak to power with integrity and tenacity.