WASHINGTON (CNS) — Today’s model of “consuming” journalism bears little resemblance to the old-time model of perusing the newspaper for 20 or 30 minutes at a time at the breakfast table and after work, the head of a journalism think tank told members of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Communications Jan. 12.

“Most of what we knew about how people get news is obsolete now,” said Tom Rosenstiel, founder and director of the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, in a presentation to the committee on “News in Our Digital Lives.”

But he said the Catholic Church might have a jump on others in building the “brand loyalty” needed to attract and retain readers today, because it is a membership organization with a built-in audience.

“You guys are networked in,” Rosenstiel said. “You can tell their stories, provide their perspective. It is a tremendous opportunity.”

But he recommended that Church leaders learn to “speak all the different formats” and to “understand the potential each medium has and exploit that.”

Rosenstiel told the committee that the vast majority of people today get their news from multiple platforms, but said they are “not aimless wanderers.” Most visit two to five websites daily, and about a third visit each site several times a day, he said.

More than half of those responding to a Pew survey said they get their news from non-news institutions that they follow through social-networking websites, he said, while less than a quarter get their news from news organizations on social-networking sites.

“We have moved from the ‘trust me’ era of news, to the ‘show me’ era of news,” Rosenstiel said, adding that the “me” in the equation has changed from the journalist in the former case to the reader in the latter case.

“The product has to show me why I should trust it,” he said.

Journalism has shifted from being a lecture to being a dialogue, and readers have “become their own editors,” he added.
The key for newspapers, Rosenstiel said, is to build brand loyalty by providing unique content and asking readers, “How can I answer your questions?”

With a quarter of cellphone users and 60% of smartphone users now accessing news from their phones, Rosenstiel said, “News gathering from your pocket will become more important” in the next few years.

He said, “We’re very close to the point where people are going to have the Internet in their pocket and in their car.”