By Ashley Gibbard

Most of the trends this article talks about didn’t surprise me. I knew that the use of print news was decreasing. I was, however, shocked by that fact that the use of broadcast TV news is still increasing because to me it seems like more and more people are getting their news online. Older people seem to be learning how to use the internet and social media so I thought broadcast news viewership would be decreasing.

I was most interested in the facts about the use of podcasts since that is something I would like to pursue. While I like the fact that it is growing as a medium, I find it interesting that a lot of people still don’t know what podcasting is. I became interested in podcasts for entertainment purposes and it seems like that is where they are still most successful currently, but if news organizations could find a way to use them where they could be current and relevant. I think that could help expand the market.

I don’t think a podcast could be used for a news broadcast because then it becomes like a radio show, and after a day the news changes and that “episode” of the podcast becomes irrelevant. However, if a news show that was broadcast could also be a podcast that would automatically download on your phone, that could be a way of getting a newscast to people without them having to be near a radio or a TV.

Podcasts are really good for interviews and discussions because once you record and upload them, they stay on whichever site you use and you can either download them or listen to them on a website, but they are always there for reference.

I think if news outlets and podcast producers keep working at it, they will be able to come up with a way to make this a vital option for getting news out, which in turn would hopefully make people more aware and create a bigger market so podcasts could be used for all types of purposes. I think as media continues to evolve podcasts will become another media outlet for news.

Another thing that was interesting to me was the magazine portion of the article. While I wasn’t surprised that the sale of digital magazines is increasing, I was very surprised that they subscription level of print magazines stayed stable. Does this mean we still have a large amount of people who would prefer to read articles and stories that are printed on paper versus on their computer? And if so then why is the newspaper industry suffering so much? Why do people still want their magazines in print but not their newspapers? It will be interesting to see what happens to these trends over the next few years.