Tomorrow is World News Day, an opportunity to reflect on the value and necessity of fact-based journalism.
For those who rely on news for their information or whose job is to report it, it is also an opportunity to assess the current state of the profession and how well it is fulfilling its mission. Its mission remains unchanged: gathering information and reporting accurately and timely in the public interest. However, the environment in which this happens is constantly changing. The business models that traditionally underpinned professional journalism have been upended, and successive waves of technological innovation have changed consumption patterns. That means journalism has to find a way to reach audiences where they are now, not where they used to be.
That challenge is becoming more and more intense. The emergence of “news deserts” at the local level is particularly worrying. There is a clear need for new models to help maintain objective, nonpartisan reporting at the local level.
Today’s information-saturated environment makes it difficult to distinguish between signal and noise, what is important and what is temporary, or objective truth and intentional misdirection. Meanwhile, news organizations themselves would do well to reflect on a recent Reuters Institute study showing that people are increasingly actively avoiding news altogether. There are no easy answers to these questions, but they can only be resolved through a relationship between news producers and news consumers based on trust and accountability.
Reporting the news is more dangerous than ever. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, approximately 116 journalists and media workers have been killed since the war in Gaza began. Hundreds more are currently imprisoned around the world, with China and Myanmar being the worst offenders. That fact-based reporting is seen as such a threat by authoritarians should remind everyone of how important it is to maintaining a healthy democracy.
