Hot To Go! The Resources You'll Need To Fix Media Now
We can't reimagine information without...information.
NOTE: This article was updated on November 18, 2024 to remove all links to Twitter. Public Enlightenment recommends Bluesky for your micro-blogging information needs.
If we’re going to reimagine our information ecosystem together we’ll need a solid list of media reform resources—voices to follow, organizations to join, legislation to support, books to read, and podcasts to listen to.
Who’s on the vanguard of media reform issues? What do experts on regulation have to say? Who’s talking policy proposals?
Let’s be frank, those questions are boring as hell. But, look, I want your grandkid to exist in a future that isn’t a dystopian hellscape brought on by mass delusion.
Don’t you?
The worldwide migrant crisis of today, exacerbated by increasingly disruptive extreme weather events, will become a full blown nightmare for your grandchild. Droughts, floods, wildfires, and mass extinctions will drive more chaos, fascism, and inequality, all because we here in the present were so under-informed, disinformed, and civically disengaged that we couldn’t elect a representative government to address our problems.
Our goal is the best informed society possible because only an informed society can make the healthiest decisions at the ballot box. Indeed, the issues you care about the most will only be addressed if your fellow voters are well-informed about them. Media reform is the one true path to a healthier democracy and happier outcomes.
Your first step, then, is to better understand your information ecosystem. The resources below are a starter kit to help you do that.
We are going to make this change. Now lift up that foot and start your journey.
Voices
Follow these people and sign up for their newsletters.
Victor Pickard - Bluesky
Pickard, a professor at the Annenberg School for Communication at Penn, is my media reform guiding light. He teaches and writes about history and political economy of media, politics of media policy, and democratic theories of journalism.
Steven Waldman - LinkedIn
Fifteen years ago a journalist described Waldman, then at the FCC, as the “point man for fixing the news business.” He’s now getting stuff done via the hard slog of public policy solutions as founder and president of Rebuild Local News, a nonpartisan nonprofit advocacy group dedicated to addressing the decline of local news and enhancing local democracy.
Dan Froomkin - PressWatch
Froomkin is a trailblazer in the area of online accountability journalism. He incisively critiques our failing legacy media outlets and suggests ways they can improve.
Margaret Sullivan - American Crisis, The Guardian
Sullivan is a pro-democracy media critic and the former public editor of the New York Times. She writes regularly about the need for our press to do better, and how they might go about doing so.
Parker Molloy - The Present Age, Bluesky
The Present Age is a newsletter about communication in a hyperconnected world. Molloy has written about the role right-wing media played in the rise of Donald Trump and the creation of alternate perceived realities.
Karl Bode - TechDirt
Bode writes about tech, media, politics, corruption, consumer rights, and sustainable, locally-owned alternatives to telecom monopoly power. His writing style makes the arcane world of tech and media regulation accessible.
Darryl Holliday - Website, Columbia Journalism Review Article
Holliday helps "people deepen civic life in the places where they live by creating more participatory local news and more collaborative community conversations." He has less of an online presence than the other voices on this list, but his writing on getting regular members of the public involved in newsmaking is essential.
Podcasts
What’s easier than listening to podcasts? I highly recommend CounterSpin for its subject matter and digestible, 28 minute episodes.
CounterSpin
CounterSpin is FAIR’s weekly radio show, hosted by Janine Jackson, that exposes and highlights biased and inaccurate news; censored stories; sexism, racism and homophobia in the news; the power of corporate influence; gaffes and goofs by leading TV pundits; TV news’ narrow political spectrum; attacks on free speech; and more.
Local News Matters
Local News Matters highlights the interesting and innovative work of local newsrooms - as well as the crucial questions they face - as they endeavor to evolve their organizations to produce more meaningful journalism, to better serve their communities and to enhance their organization's financial sustainability for long-term results.
Tech Won’t Save Us
Host Paris Marx is one of Elon Musk’s most outspoken critics. The topics don’t always relate to social media and communication, but this podcast made the list for its insightful look into the industry that will shape our information future.
Organizations
There are lots of orgs out there. The collection below is a representative sample of the various types of work being done to improve our information ecosystem. Get involved with these organizations directly or donate.
Documenters
Documenters are engaged citizens who are recruited, trained and paid by the Documenters Network to participate in the newsgathering process and contribute to a communal pool of knowledge.
Nieman Lab
The Nieman Journalism Lab is an attempt to help journalism figure out its future in an Internet age.
Media and Democracy Project
A grassroots organization fighting for a more informative and pro-democracy media operating in the public interest. I am a co-founder. We’re taking on Fox and building tools like our Local Journalism Directory so that folks can find and support quality journalism that informs.
Rebuild Local News
The Rebuild Local News Coalition advocates for public policies to increase the number of reporters covering schools, city hall, businesses, and other facets of community life.
Solutions Journalism Network
The Solutions Journalism Network is leading a global shift in journalism focused on advancing rigorous reporting about how people are trying to solve problems and what we can learn from their successes and failures.
FAIR
FAIR works to invigorate the First Amendment by advocating for greater diversity in the press and by scrutinizing media practices that marginalize public interest, minority and dissenting viewpoints.
Tiny News Collective
TNC provides the tools, resources and community of learning to help people build sustainable news organizations that reflect and serve their communities.
Press Forward
Press Forward is a national movement to strengthen our democracy by revitalizing local news and information. Basically, they pool together wealth and invest it in quality journalism.
Books
Take a deep dive with any of these books to really get smarter about media studies.
Wrong! How Media, Politics, and Identity Drive Our Appetite for Misinformation
by Dannagal G. Young
Why are so many of us wrong about so much? From COVID-19 to climate change to the results of elections, millions of Americans believe things that are simply not true—and act based on these misperceptions…Young offers a comprehensive model that illustrates how political leaders and media organizations capitalize on our social and cultural identities to separate, enrage, and—ultimately—mobilize us.
BREAKING THE NEWS: How the Media Undermine American Democracy
by James Fallows
At last a persuasive explanation of what's gone wrong with the American media--and what can be done about it. Fallows details the ways in which the current style of news coverage engenders a sense of futility in the American public about our ability to influence our society. He reveals how the reigning practices evolved and whose interests are served.
The View from Somewhere: Undoing the Myth of Journalistic Objectivity
by Lewis Raven Wallace
Lewis Raven Wallace dives deep into the history of “objectivity” in journalism and how its been used to gatekeep and silence marginalized writers as far back as Ida B. Wells. At its core, this is a book about fierce journalists who have pursued truth and transparency and sometimes been punished for it—not just by tyrannical governments but by journalistic institutions themselves.
Democracy Without Journalism?
by Victor Pickard
The book envisions what a new kind of journalism might look like, emphasizing the need for a publicly owned and democratically governed media system. Amid growing scrutiny of unaccountable monopoly control over media institutions and concerns about the consequences to democracy, now is an opportune moment to address fundamental flaws in US news and information systems and push for alternatives. Ultimately, the goal is to reinvent journalism.
Manufacturing Consent
by Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman
In this pathbreaking work, Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky show that, contrary to the usual image of the news media as cantankerous, obstinate, and ubiquitous in their search for truth and defense of justice, in their actual practice they defend the economic, social, and political agendas of the privileged groups that dominate domestic society, the state, and the global order.
Legislation
It’s difficult to move journalism-boosting legislation forward. The Rebuild Local News coalition does great work advancing the cause. I’ll be writing more about public policy efforts, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t end this resource-apalooza by asking you to take some form of action. Without further ado, I present the PRESS Act.
The PRESS Act would shield journalists from court-ordered disclosure of information about a source and what the source told them unless disclosure of the protected information is necessary to prevent, or to identify any perpetrator of, an act of terrorism against the United States, or necessary to prevent the threat of imminent violence, significant bodily harm, or death.
The PRESS Act has passed the House and is currently languishing in the Senate.
Call your senators right now and tell them you want them to vote ‘Yes’ on the PRESS Act. The Capitol switchboard phone number is (202) 224-3121.
As I do this work, I often reflect on how there is this hidden world of thousands of people who care deeply about journalism and how we are all informed. Every day, as corporate media’s low quality information, and deeply funded right-wing disinformation, dominate our screens and shape our politics, dedicated individuals are working tirelessly to improve the quality of our information and our ability to access it.
It’s time we all join them. What’s it gonna take to fix media now?
You.
Am I Missing Something?
Let me know in the comments.