HOLD FOR RELEASE UNTIL MARCH 16 2015
A study conducted by Bloom reveals 85% of news is dependent on geographic information.
The online platform for journalism announces the importance of location-based technology in the news industry and essential strategies for the future of news publishing.
WASHINGTON DC – The study contains data that was collected from 24 world-focused and city-focused newspapers that were published in 2014 and 2015. A total of 2,002 articles were surveyed for various geographic information with a goal to determine the dependence of location in the news industry.
Just over 85% of the articles had a subject that was dependent on a location. 98% of all articles published by city-focused newspapers were location dependent, surpassing world-focused newspapers by 18%. 86% of dependent articles from city-focused newspapers discussed a specific address, whereas about 10% discussed the residing city and 3% on the encompassing state.
“In recent years, the news industry has been facing a major decline in print publishing. Many newspapers have filed for bankruptcy or flipped into an online service.” states Bloom founder, Stephen Jefferson. “However, city-focused publishers have limited options due to smaller budgets. The emergence of free location-based services can help boost their readership and profit as seen by the 98% dependency rate in their publications.”
Additionally, the study determined 59% of articles collected from world-focused sources described locations that are within a different region or country than their office location which shows the amount of interest journalists have writing specifically about a foreign area.
The study found that categories with the highest percentage of location dependency include events (70%), government (32%), sports (19%), and emergencies (19%). These categories have the highest reliability when utilized in location-based services, which reflects the overall reliance on geographic information within their designated industries.
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