Press freedom is under attack, and not just recently. It has been on a steady decline for the last decade, according to the World Press Freedom Index, which ranks 180 countries every year.
Author: Sissel McCarthy
It feels like a new conspiracy theory is popping up every day. Just look at the social media posts after Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin collapsed during the game against the Cincinnati Bengals. Doctors say the sudden hit to his chest caused a cardiac arrest, but within minutes, vaccine skeptics blamed the COVID-19 vaccine.
We’ve all heard the saying, “There are two sides to every story.” And sometimes, that’s true in journalism–and life. But balance is not an element of journalism and certainly not its goal. While reporters investigate both—or many—points of view to arrive at what Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel call “the most complete understanding of the facts,” giving equal time to both sides may not always be fair to the truth.
Representation is a huge challenge for newsrooms, and you’re right– they need to do better. When news outlets consult the same people, again and again, the audience is deprived of a full range of voices, perspectives and even facts. A lack of diversity and representation can also breed audience disengagement and mistrust.
That depends on whom you ask, but a lot of U.S. adults and lawmakers in Texas and Florida think so, setting up what could be a showdown at the Supreme Court.
Research has shown that fact-checking is effective, but there are drawbacks to this approach. So instead of relying exclusively on debunking false claims, researchers recommend prebunking. Prebunking is a preemptive strike—a kind of inoculation against misinformation.
America’s partisan divide is becoming more pronounced, and cable news is stoking these divisions even more than social media, according to a new study that tracked the news consumption of tens of thousands of people over four years.
Journalists get this question—or lament—all the time from people who think the news offers too much opinion and not enough fact. More than two-thirds of Americans say they see too much opinion and bias in news. Hence the plea, “just stick to the facts.” Here’s the problem: Serving up just the facts can misrepresent the news or even create a false narrative.
The personalization of news is a permanent feature of our information ecosystem that comes with some benefits and many challenges. News consumers are often overwhelmed by the amount of news they’re exposed to on a daily basis, and news personalization definitely helps by filtering that content. But algorithms that allow news outlets to curate information can lead to a filter bubble, polarization and extreme views.
Not enough. Journalists around the world are targets of both real and online attacks, and impunity for these crimes is on the rise. Look no further than Ukraine to see journalists risking their lives to document Russia’s historic invasion of Europe’s second-largest country. According to Reporters Without Borders, more than 1,000 foreign correspondents have joined the Ukrainian press corps on the ground.
