While journalism has adapted to the digital age in many ways, its institutional norms and practices have failed to respond to many cultural and political changes. Newsroom diversity remains a problem, both in terms of staff and the sources they use, while the rise of social media has drastically reframed journalism’s role as a relevant and responsive gatekeeper of information.
If journalism is to remain an essential institution in our democracy, argues Barbie Zelizer, the Raymond Williams Professor of Communication and director of the Center for Media at Risk at the Annenberg School for Communication, an overdue transformation is needed. Our very democracy depends on it.
A former journalist herself, Zelizer has co-written a new book, “The Journalism Manifesto” (Polity Books, 2022), focused on how once-fundamental rules of journalism have become outdated, and are actually doing a disservice to the reality they seek to present. So what can be done about it?
“We put this together as a call to journalists and journalism scholars to fundamentally rethink what journalism is about—what it’s for, what they think it’s doing, what they think it’s accomplishing—and to reset what journalism is all about in liberal democracies,” says Zelizer.
“We come up with two suggestions: One is the reformist path to profoundly change some of the fundamental bedposts on which journalism rests. And the second is the revolutionary path—to throw them out and start again. Both are better than carrying on as if nothing has changed. Inaction or maintenance of the status quo in journalism, we argue, is simply no longer sustainable.”
This story is by Alina Ladyzhensky. Read more at Annenberg School for Communication.
