June 2, 11am-12pm
Robert McChesney, Professor of Communication, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
"The Local Journalism Initiative"
Journalism, especially at the local level, is dying. The business model that sustained it, based on advertising, has been destroyed by the Internet. No new commercial model has emerged online, and investors have abandoned the field.
This is proving to be an unmitigated disaster for democracy, popular participation, and accountable governance. The US constitution is predicated on there being a powerful competitive local news media for the entire governing project to survive, let alone succeed.
Slowly but surely people are recognizing this is a public policy issue, in the United States and worldwide. Fortunately, history provides the solution: public funding to create a competitive, diverse, uncensored local news media.
In this talk Professor McChesney discussed some current reform ideas, and concentrate on a plan he authored with several scholars, activists and journalists, both in the United States and worldwide: the Local Journalism Initiative (LJI).
If adopted, the LJI would solve the journalism problem and open the door to a society that could effectively address, debate and, to the extent it is possible, resolve the great existential issues facing the United State and other countries and our species. It would provide a death blow to fascism, before fascism can destroy us.