On Monday, the Pew Research Center for Excellence in Journalism released a much-commented-upon study titled "How News Happens." The conclusion: newpapers are still the overwhelming generators of original reporting, while online-only sources might as well be tits on a bull.

The study was based on a single city (Baltimore) and a single week (in June) looking at six traditional narratives (state budget cuts, swine flu, a bus-company scandal, a historic building sale, police shootings, and juvenile justice).

Here's a chart of where the new info came from:

(Niche media are two business publications; new media include 10 blogs. Full list here.)

What struck me is how that chart mirrored this pie chart:

That's from a story I did last year on the Twin Cities reporting corps; while there have been some changes since then, I doubt the mix has changed dramatically. Although we're comparing two different cities and only Baltimore's infosphere, it does suggest that headcount may be a bigger factor determining original content than what medium you work for.

I don't want to let my non-newspaper colleagues off the hook; I don't think we produce enough original, ass-kicking content with the staffs we have, and believe strongly in the power of a good ass-kick when we fall short.

As I've written many times, I focus on the Strib because they still dominate the news agenda (and it's nice when they do with tart probes like this), though it's nice to see my team kick out original, if explanatory, work like this and this. The New York Times was nice enough to suggest Minneapolis might be different, but I found Baltimore's situation too recognizable for my taste.

While praising newspapers, Pew noted just how corrosive cutbacks have been to output:

A comparison of one major story during the week studied — about state budget cuts — found newspapers in the area produced only one-third as many stories in 2009 as they did the last time the state made a similar round of budget cuts in 1991, and the Baltimore Sun one seventh as many.

Now, story count isn't a perfect measure of quality, and in this case, Baltimore may not be the optimal example. The recently bankrupt Tribune Co. has cut staffing at the Sun far more than many distressed papers, including our own. Still, only a fool would deny the dynamic is eating into coverage everywhere.

Another major takeaway is how much the institutions that journalists cover set the agenda:

As the press scales back on original reporting and dissemination, reproducing other people’s work becomes a bigger part of the news media system. Government, at least in this study, initiates most of the news. In the detailed examination of six major story lines, 63% of the stories were initiated by government officials, led first of all by the police. Another 14% came from the press. Interest group figures made up most of the rest.

As you might expect, there are a lot of good critiques of Pew's conclusions, from innovation-oriented newspaperfolk and familiar scolds. While Pew may have overly circumscribed the blogosphere and undervalued analysis and context, I agree that whatever's coming hasn't fully replaced what's being lost, at least on the big-deal probes.