Abstract
staff by three hundred to four hundred, about 25 percent. More than one-quarter of the public now gets news from cell phones. Bankruptcies, buyouts, and bolting advertisers send one message: The sky, 1⁄2lled with pink slips for reporters, is falling on mainstream news media. Three magazines displayed next to each other at a bookstore blame different culprits for the mainstream news media’s plight. A New Yorker Nostradamus describes an entertain-or-die media world of nonstop news on the Web and high-decibel argument on cable tv.1 An Atlantic column points to the shift in readership from lengthy newspaper articles to Internet articles that “get to the point.”2 An Utne Reader article cites plummeting international coverage by U.S. media, down by about 40 percent in 2008.3 The authors of all three magazine pieces, whatever their differences, probably agree with the assumption that drives this issue of Daedalus about the future of news: A democracy depends on a citizenry informed by the free flow of serious news and an independent journalism that continuously casts a skeptical eye on the powerful and provides original, reliable reporting. This issue’s 1⁄2rst article–by Herbert J. Gans, the Robert S. Lynd Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Columbia University–calls for rethinking the theory of the press as a bulwark of democracy. Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, and Jeffrey A. Gottfried, senior researcher at the Center, follow with an article that credits news media with traditionally educating citizens about national issues. But the article questions whether, based on coverage of the 2008 presidential campaign, the media “still sift fact from fabrication.” Those who see informed citizens as key to a democracy worry, often apocalyptically, about the advertising-supported U.S. media that traditionally have provided news and credible journalism. Print newspapers are closing, commercial radio news is disappearing, and television news operations are slashing staff to survive. What business models will provide the income for news organizations to do the ambitious, expensive journalism that covers wars abroad and investigates corruption at home? Loren Ghiglione
Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
