IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - September 2020 - 25
COMMENTARY
G. Pascal Zachary
Creating a U.S.
National Journalism
Foundation
t is time now to move
beyond handwringing a nd nost a lg ia
over our vanished
American journalism past. While market forces
will sustain some forms of serious reportage, evidence is mounting that creators of journalism in
the public interest can't innovate
their way out of a deepening technological crisis. From the new
frontiers of digital media to the
decaying world of print newspapers to the diminished aspirations
of once-mighty magazines, market
and economic forces continue to
reduce the scale and scope of public-interest journalism.
In the U.S., nonprofits and foundations have stepped up to fill some
gaps and provide short-term relief.
Wealthy benefactors, while few, are
leading a renaissance at the Washington Post and a smattering of other
journalism organizations. Yet many
informed people recognize today
that no combination of commercial
innovations, charity, and wealthy
patrons can save quality journalism.
As Nicholas Lemann wrote in early
2020, "The political implications of
[the decline of journalism] are painfully obvious, in the United States
and elsewhere: in journalism, the
poorer, the more nativist, the angrier
parts of the country ... are the ones
where journalism can't deliver on its
public promise because of its severe
economic constraints. Journalism is
ISTOCK/ARTISTEER
I
a case in which it's going to take a
whole new set of arrangements, and
a new way of thinking, to solve the
present crisis."1
What is to be done? The first step
is to rethink the economic and financial foundations of quality journal1
The most comprehensive and imaginative
recent account of the epic decline of quality "print" journalism and the faltering efforts
of digital media and online journalism to fill
the yawning gap is Nicholas Lemann's essay,
"Can Journalism Be Saved?," in The New York
Review of Books, Feb. 26, 2020 [1].
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MTS.2020.3012319
Date of current version: 2 September 2020
SEPTEMBER 2020
∕
IEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE
ism and to begin by accepting that
neither market forces, nor charitable
donations or wealthy patronage can,
alone or in combination, sustain
the level of intensive, thorough and
responsible journalism necessary to
nourish an informed citizenry in a
nation as large, diverse, and complicated as the United States. The reasons why market-based innovations
in journalism fail and continue to
fail are complex - and deserve their
own detailed explanation. Here I will
25
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - September 2020
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