Improving Newspapers’ Economic Prospects by Augmenting Their Contributions to Democracy

Abstract

Newspapers confront an acute dilemma: how to give citizens more of what they need in a democracy-more than citizens now know enough to demand in the marketplace. The more news production strays from the core function of enhancing democracy, the more potential consumers learn they have little reason to invest their free time consuming serious political journalism. So they don't, and newspapers and the stock market continue redirecting their resources. To counter this, industry observers have been urging non-profit business models. Yet even in this scenario, maintaining their watchdog function requires newspapers to support staffs large enough to investigate the powerful. Therefore, this essay argues, even a non-profit newspaper industry should still pursue mass audiences. Building on a synthesis of scholarly findings, this article suggests ways of doing political journalism that respond to changing audience interests and ever-growing alternatives to traditional daily newspapers-while remaining true to the higher ideals of watchdog journalism. To illustrate pitfalls of current practice and benefits of innovation it analyzes news about global warming.

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