Digital Media Consumption Increases, Offering Hope for Journalists

Wednesday, ComScore Media Metrix data that showed 57 percent of Internet users in the U.S. looked at a newspaper site in May at home or at work.

The results showed the New York Times as the leading online brand. Also receiving significant national traffic is USA Today, ranked number four among the newspaper groups; the Washington Post ranking number five; and the Wall Street Journal came in at number ten.

Physical books (as opposed to those on e-readers) sales tracked by the Association of American Publishers for the month of April increased by 24.8 percent percent in April to $629.8 million and were up by 11.8 percent for the year through April.

Such numbers might mean that actual books—the kind made out of paper—may become extinct. But that doesn't mean the profession of journalism is dead, contrary to what some tried to tell me when I graduated from college in 2008.

Wednesday evening, I attended the Street Sense Annual David Pike Awards, honoring excellence in covering poverty and homelessness in more traditional media. [Disclaimer: I am employed by the organization.] It was amazing to stand among reporters and photographers from Washington Post, the Washington City Paper and other local media outlets. John Driscoll, president and CEO of the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans spoke of his years as a reporter, how it was the second most important job of his life next to being a MedEvac during the Vietnam War. Such a speech was inspiring, and numbers of an increase in digital media consumption reiterates the idea that journalism, in some form, will always exist and the noble profession will continue.

Lisa Gillespie is a former staff writer for Campus Progress as well as the Managing Editor & New Media Director at Street Sense. She graduated from the University of North Carolina–Asheville.

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