How do we make it so these types of headlines don't exist in 5 years?
A failure of public education? News media becoming entertainment media? Filter bubbles? Broad and proud ignorance is anathema to a democracy. How do we fix this?
This weekend I’ve been reading The Death and Life of American Journalism , a sobering take on what is necessary to ensure a vibrant and democracy-sustaining journalism for the 21st century. The authors advocate a robust program of government subsidy and intervention as the only thing that will “save journalism”. I can’t say I’m convinced with their argument and believe they woefully underestimate the potential to monetize news content in a digital, media-fueled world. We’re only 1% of the way there in figuring out how to create value for brands when they advertise digitally alongside editorial news content. That said, they’ve accurately identified that the economic model of journalism was under threat well before the Internet disruption of the 2000s. It is societally unacceptable for news editorial to be outsourced to the PR industry. We need a vibrant press that is not merely a curator of corporate and governmental media initiatives, but a corrective counterweight that drives its own independent public narratives.
