A tipping point for journalism

[Commentary] The long-awaited Federal Communications Commission report on the state of America's news media landed with a big thud, sort of like the Sunday newspaper of old hitting your front porch. Initial reactions to the recent FCC report have uniformly praised its exhaustive diagnosis of the problems facing local news reporting. But there also has been disappointment that the report didn't offer remedies.

Can that really be a surprise? American journalism is at a tipping point. The Internet has disrupted the business model that underwrote local news for more than 100 years. The Great Recession made matters worse, resulting in local newspaper and television newsrooms dramatically cutting staffs and other news resources. Another economic shock would hit the media like the tornado that devastated Joplin. Little would be left that we could recognize as local news coverage. If remedies to this were obvious, they would be working by now.

Journalistic institutions do not need saving; they need creating. Technology is opening amazing possibilities to give people convenient access to both civic and life-enhancing information, without regard to income or social status, the commission said. What is needed, it added, is "fresh thinking and new approaches to the gathering and sharing of news and information."

The key question going forward is what policies will promote original reporting in local communities. Further consolidation of media ownership is unlikely to do that. The FCC should promote its mandated goals of competition, localism and diversity. Most important, we must remember that the purpose of journalism is to give people the information they need to be free and self-governing. So each of us has a stake in its future. As the Knight Commission concluded, "the information issue is everyone's issue."

[Fancher is the 2011-2012 Donald W. Reynolds Chair in the Ethics of Entrepreneurial and Innovative Journalism at the University of Nevada-Reno]