We Need to Fix the News Media, Not Just Social Media

Because the stakes are so high, we need to look with extreme skepticism at proposals primarily designed to prop up the current consolidated and dysfunctional media landscape. If we want to address the very real problems created by a dysfunctional media, we need to separate which of these problems can properly be attributed to dominant platforms and which to structural problems in the traditional news industry. Additionally, legitimate fears of the ability of dominant platforms to act as gatekeepers, or concerns about their outsized influence on the economics of news production and dissemination, should not justify solutions that destroy the extremely important role these platforms have played – and continue to play – in civic engagement and enhancing the creation of new and independent outlets for news. We could start by honestly acknowledging the longstanding problems with the media and that the current crisis is not simply a result of the emergence of a handful of dominant online platforms or even changes in technology. What are the possible solutions to the underlying problems in journalism? How do we repair journalism? Equally important, how do we repair the public’s trust in journalism?