Report Proposes New Steps to Support Quality Public Affairs Reporting
Source: Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism

As the news business continues to confront fundamental economic challenges, a report, released on Oct. 19, 2009 by Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, proposes new steps for maintaining a vibrant, independent press, with special emphasis on local “accountability journalism” that is essential to civic life. The report, “The Reconstruction of American Journalism,” was written by Leonard Downie, Jr., former executive editor of The Washington Post, and Michael Schudson, a Journalism School professor.

The report, commissioned by Columbia Journalism School and underwritten in large part by the Charles H. Revson Foundation, takes full account of the well-known problems caused by deep cutbacks in reporting on public issues, especially in local newspapers. Yet even as advertising revenues continue to fall, budgets are further reduced and more news outlets shutter their doors, the authors also identify “abundant opportunity in the future of journalism” — especially in the very online medium that has caused the economic disruption of traditional media models. In particular, they point to a growing number of innovative online journalistic endeavors that can be developed on a broader scale to provide Americans with a diverse mix of for-profit, low-profit and non-profit sources of news and public affairs.

+ Full Report (PDF; 200 KB)

Hat tip: SS

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