The Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism recently completed a survey of 259 newpaper editors across the United States.  The findings demonstrate the need for newspapers to continue to adapt to the changing media landscape.  Newspapers have faced unprecedented challenges in recent years as readers and advertisers shift to other outlets, mostly on the Internet. Many newspapers have more readers today than ever as Web readership soars, but online ads bring in only a fraction of the revenue that print ads — which are on the decline — generate.  The challenge “is to find a way to monetize the rapid growth of Web readership before newsroom staff cuts so weaken newspapers that their competitive advantage disappears,” notes the study.

“Editors said they had seen gains in other areas as well: the ability to post stories online quickly and to update them frequently, particularly during breaking stories such as fires and tornadoes. The constant demands of the Web have pumped added pressures as well as vitality into newsrooms,” reports the Los Angeles Times.

Additionally, the study concluded, ” “In effect, America’s newspapers are narrowing their reach and their ambitions and becoming niche reads.”

I offered my own opinions about the future of the newspaper business here.  I observed, “I’ve argued before that the publications with a niche and that serve a specific audience need (it might be based on a genre of news or geography) have a better chance of making substantial gains in online advertising.”