Technology is driving a historic transformation in local news, according to a report released August 11 by the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. "Historians will look back at the early 21st century as a turning point, when decades-long patterns of readership, listening, and viewing were disrupted by new, powerful and inexpensive technology," writes USC Annenberg Senior Fellow Adam Clayton Powell III (pictured), author of Reinventing Local News: Connecting Communities Through New Technologies. Powell also cautions "Too many news managers are defensive or bewildered by change ... content to watch their audiences dwindle as bloggers from the outside and newsroom missteps on the inside erode their credibility." The study is a project of the USC Annenberg Local News Initiative.
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