Journalists have failed to respond adequately to the challenge of the Internet, with far-reaching consequences for the future of journalism and democracy. This is the compelling argument set forth in this timely new text, drawing on the most extensive ethnographic fieldwork in American newsrooms since the 1970s. David Ryfe argues that journalists are unable or unwilling to innovate for a variety of reasons: in part because habits are sticky and difficult to dislodge; in part because of their strategic calculation that the cost of change far exceeds its benefit; and in part because basic definitions of what journalism is, and what it is for, anchor journalism to tradition even when journalists prefer to change. The result is that journalism is unraveling as an integrated social field; it may never again be a separate and separable activity from the broader practice of producing news. One thing is certain: whatever happens next, it will have dramatic consequences for the role journalism plays in democratic society and perhaps will transform its basic meaning and purpose. Can Journalism Survive? is essential and provocative reading for all concerned with the future of journalism and society.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is changing all aspects of communications and journalism as automatic processes are being introduced into all facets of classical journalism: investigation, content production, and distribution. Traditional human roles in these fields are being replaced by automatic processes and robots.The first section of this book focuses on a discussion of AI, the new emerging field of robot journalism, and the opportunities that AI limitations create for human journalists. The second section offers examples of the new journalism storytelling that empower human journalists using new technologies, new applications, and AI tools. While this book focuses on journalism, the discussion and conclusions are relevant to all content creators, including professionals in the advertising industry, which is a major main source of support for journalism.

In the 21st century, the Internet has made publishers of anyone with a laptop or mobile phone. In response many observers have said that traditional media -- defined as newspapers, radio, television, cable TV, magazines and other print publications -- are in a death spiral if not already dead. In a series of articles ranging from academic journals to popular print media, opinion surveys and government reports, Are Traditional Media Dead?, investigates this question, exploring: Does journalism have one foot in the grave? How traditional media can fight back How new media has impacted traditional media. How journalism can change to adapt to digital age? Can older media survive?

This book challenges the once-dominant social responsibility model and argues that a new, "individual-first" paradigm is what will allow journalism to survive in today's crowded media marketplace. By some measures, it would seem that print journalism is dying. Journalism recently suffered one of its worst circulation declines in years: a drop of more than ten percent in the a six month period ending September 30, 2009. The Rocky Mountain News in Denver, CO, closed its doors in 2009—after it dominated the AP awards in 2008, and was lauded for an investigative expose on unfair treatment of former nuclear workers. Even the New York Times and the Washington Post are experiencing financial trouble. But print advertising revenue still trumps online advertising revenue ten-fold. Is there hope yet for traditional journalism? This book reviews the complicated challenge facing journalism, tracing its 19th-century community-oriented origins and documenting the vast expansion of the news business via blogs and other Internet-enabled outlets, user-generated content, and news-like alternatives. The author argues that a radical shift in mindset—striving to meet each individual's demands for what he wants to know—will be necessary to save journalism.

America's community newspapers have entered an age of disruption. Towns and cities continue to need the journalism and advertising so essential to nurturing local identity and connection among citizens. But as the business of newspaper publishing collides with the digital revolution, and as technology redefines consumer habits and the very notion of community, how can newspapers survive and thrive? In Saving Community Journalism, veteran media executive Penelope Muse Abernathy draws on cutting-edge research and analysis to reveal pathways to transformation and long-term profitability. Offering practical guidance for editors and publishers, Abernathy shows how newspapers can build community online and identify new opportunities to generate revenue. Examining experiences at a wide variety of community papers--from a 7,000-circulation weekly in West Virginia to a 50,000-circulation daily in California and a 150,000-circulation Spanish-language weekly in the heart of Chicago--Saving Community Journalism is designed to help journalists and media-industry managers create and implement new strategies that will allow them to prosper in the twenty-first century. Abernathy's findings will interest everyone with a stake in the health and survival of local media.

Engaged Journalism explores the changing relationship between news producers and audiences and the methods journalists can use to secure the attention of news consumers. Based on Jake Batsell's extensive experience and interaction with more than twenty innovative newsrooms, this book shows that, even as news organizations are losing their agenda-setting power, journalists can still thrive by connecting with audiences through online technology and personal interaction. Batsell conducts interviews with and observes more than two dozen traditional and startup newsrooms across the United States and the United Kingdom. Traveling to Seattle, London, New York City, and Kalamazoo, Michigan, among other locales, he attends newsroom meetings, combs through internal documents, and talks with loyal readers and online users to document the successes and failures of the industry's experiments with paywalls, subscriptions, nonprofit news, live events, and digital tools including social media, data-driven interactives, news games, and comment forums. He ultimately concludes that, for news providers to survive, they must constantly listen to, interact with, and fulfill the specific needs of their audiences, whose attention can no longer be taken for granted. Toward that end, Batsell proposes a set of best practices based on effective, sustainable journalistic engagement.

Will the use of artificial intelligence (AI), algorithms, and smart machines be the end of journalism as we know it—or its savior? In Newsmakers, Francesco Marconi, who has led the development of the Associated Press and Wall Street Journal’s use of AI in journalism, offers a new perspective on the potential of these technologies. He explains how reporters, editors, and newsrooms of all sizes can take advantage of the possibilities they provide to develop new ways of telling stories and connecting with readers. Marconi analyzes the challenges and opportunities of AI through case studies ranging from financial publications using algorithms to write earnings reports to investigative reporters analyzing large data sets to outlets determining the distribution of news on social media. Newsmakers contends that AI can augment—not automate—the industry, allowing journalists to break more news more quickly while simultaneously freeing up their time for deeper analysis. Marshaling insights drawn from firsthand experience, Marconi maps a media landscape transformed by artificial intelligence for the better. In addition to considering the benefits of these new technologies, Marconi stresses the continuing need for editorial and institutional oversight. Newsmakers outlines the important questions that journalists and media organizations should consider when integrating AI and algorithms into their workflow. For journalism students as well as seasoned media professionals, Marconi’s insights provide much-needed clarity and a practical roadmap for how AI can best serve journalism.

For a century and a half, journalists made a good business out of selling the latest news or selling ads next to that news. Now that news pours out of the Internet and our mobile devices—fast, abundant, and mostly free—that era is ending. Our best journalists, Mitchell Stephens argues, instead must offer original, challenging perspectives—not just slightly more thorough accounts of widely reported events. His book proposes a new standard: “wisdom journalism,” an amalgam of the more rarified forms of reporting—exclusive, enterprising, investigative—and informed, insightful, interpretive, explanatory, even opinionated takes on current events. This book features an original, sometimes critical examination of contemporary journalism, both on- and offline. And it finds inspiration for a more ambitious and effective understanding of journalism in examples from twenty-first-century articles and blogs, as well as in a selection of outstanding twentieth-century journalism and Benjamin Franklin’s eighteenth-century writings. Most attempts to deal with journalism’s current crisis emphasize technology. This book emphasizes mindsets and the need to rethink what journalism has been and might become.

Media business that mostly relies on ad revenue requires an audience that consists of happy and economically able consumers. Media business that mostly relies on reader revenue requires an audience that consists of frustrated and politically strangulated citizens. The media not only address these audiences; they create and reproduce them.All we knew about journalism was related to a news business funded by advertising. Advertising has fled to the internet. The entire media environment is shifting. The media are forced to switch to another source of funding - selling content to readers. However, they cannot sell news, because news is already known to people whose media consumption is increasingly centered on social media newsfeeds. Instead, the media offers the validation of already-known news within a certain value system and the delivery of the "right" news to others. The business necessity forces the media to relocate the gravity of their operation from news to values.Media outlets are increasingly soliciting subscriptions as donations to a cause. To attract donations, they have to focus on 'pressing social issues'. However, for better soliciting, they must also support and amplify readers' irritation and frustration with those issues. Thus, the media are incentivized to amplify and dramatize issues whose coverage is most likely to be paid for. Ideally, the media should not just exaggerate but induce the public's concerns.The ad-driven media manufactured consent. The reader-driven media manufactures anger. The former served consumerism. The latter serves polarization.Because the largest mainstream media outlets in the US, both liberal and conservative, performed incredibly well in commodifying Trump in the form of soliciting subscriptions as donations to the cause, the rest of the media market has started moving in the same direction.The need to pursue reader revenue, with the news no longer being a commodity, is pushing journalism to mutate into postjournalism. Journalism wants its picture to match the world; postjournalism wants the world to match its picture. The media are turning into crowdsourced Ministries of post-truth not because of some underlying conspiracies but due to their business needs and the settings of a broader media environment. This book is about the origins and propelling forces of this mutation. The book explores polarization as a media effect, seeing polarization studies as media studies.Andrey Mir (Andrey Miroshnichenko) is a media scholar and journalist with twenty years in the print media. He is the author of "Human as Media. The Emancipation of Authorship" (2014) and a number of books on media and politics. His dissertation in journalism and linguistics (1996) focused on the linguistics of the Soviet media and propaganda. He lives in Toronto, Canada. His blog: Human as Media (human-as-media.com). Twitter: @Andrey4Mir

This report is the fourth on the state of local news produced by the Hussman School of Journalism and Media at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It measures what has been lost, while also assessing what must be done if we are to nurture and revive a vibrant news landscape in the third decade of the 21st century. The first section of this report, "The News Landscape in 2020: Transformed and Diminished," examines the loss of local news, from the end of 2004--when newspaper advertising, circulation and employment were at, or near, peak levels--to the end of 2019, providing a time-lapsed snapshot of the news landscape before the coronavirus seized control of the economy. It assesses not only the current state of local newspapers, but also that of local digital sites, ethnic news organizations and public broadcasting outlets. The second section, "The News Landscape of the Future: Transformed ... and Renewed?" establishes the need for a reimagining of journalistic, business, technological and policy solutions. Extensive research has established that the loss of local news has significant political, social and economic implications for our democracy and our society. Yet, according to the Pew Research Center, almost three-quarters of the general public remains unaware of the dire economic situation confronting local news organizations. By documenting the transformation of the local news landscape over the past 15 years, and exploring the challenges and potential solutions, we hope this report will raise awareness of the role that all of us can play in supporting the revival of local news. Accompanying this report, is an updated website, usnewsdeserts.com, with more than 350 interactive maps--allows readers to drill down to the county level to understand the state of local media in communities throughout the United States. You will find information on regional and community newspapers--as well as public broadcasting outlets, ethnic media and digital sites.