NYC looks to help media industry with initiative

In an effort to help a economically decaying media industry, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said his administration will launch a media initiative to both try to understand the changing industry and help it recover.

The initiative is one of the first large-scale efforts made by an organization outside of the media to try to understand how the media can recover from plummeting revenue numbers. But it is not the first time New York City has done such a study. The city has also launched efforts to better understand its financial and film industries

That Bloomberg's administration wants to help his city's media industry shouldn't be a surprise, though. Considered the media world capital, the city houses several of the country's largest newspapers, magazines and most highly-trafficked Web sites; and it accounts for roughly 160,000 jobs and $15 billion in annual wages.

“This is aiming at media broadly defined, but we’re interested primarily in the transition from traditional media outlets into the electronic age,” said Steven Strauss, the vice president of the city's Economic Development Corporation, which will be leading the effort. "The initiative comes as old-media firms in the city and region are bleeding."

There is optimism, though, that any worldwide innovative changes to the media will originate in New York City because it is the city is also home to the worlds' largest advertising industry as well as the world's financial center.

Read about the initiative here.

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Also, for a look at today's political cartoons proclaiming Barack Obama's presidential victory, go here.