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BOOKS In praise of journalism

ANDY HEDGECOCK recommends, with reservations, a defence of the Fourth Estate

Why Journalism Still Matters
by Michael Schudson
(Polity, £9.99)

NOSTALGIA for a misremembered golden age afflicts many forms of cultural endeavour, and there’s a common belief that journalism has been dying in slow motion since the Watergate scandal. It has, its critics argue, become poorer in influence, conduct and financial viability.

In contrast, Michael Schudson is optimistic in his book about the profession’s practice and prospects, suggesting it remains a social necessity in the digital age. For Schudson, journalism at its best holds power accountable and fosters a “cognitive reckoning with a complex and changing world.”

Schudson identifies threats to the profession: the loss of revenue due to free-at-source digital news, cross-media ownership by billionaire proprietors and loss of public trust due to “post-truth” reporting.

But he believes paid journalism will survive because we so desperately need it. Scurrilous information shared via social media may pollute “civic space” but this is offset by improvements in journalistic practice. Since the 1960s, Schudson argues, reporting has moved away from the fake objectivity of “he said/she said” structures that allow the views of powerful officials to dominate news narratives.

There are problems with Schudson’s argument. His claim that professional standards can be instilled in formal training is undermined by behaviour exposed by the News International phone-hacking scandal.

And evidence from other disciplines suggests values-based education is seldom any guarantee of virtuous behaviour — the ethical focus of psychology degrees has not prevented heavy-handed treatment of disabled people by the government’s behavioural insights team.

Paradoxically, the chapter Evidence That Journalism Matters makes an unsupported declaration that press professionals do not give free reign to political power but follow the story. A Loughborough University study highlighting newspapers’ pro-Tory bias during the 2019 general election campaign suggests Schudson’s optimism is unfounded.

These lapses are strange, given the book’s frankness about physical and financial risks to journalists.

The strength of the book is Schudson’s challenge to romantic despondency about news journalism. It can, he argues, survive without a business model. It has new institutions such as the ICIJ consortium, which won a Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting on the Panama Papers.

And other new developments such as fact-checking organisations and investigative blogs suggest there can be a nexus of journalists speaking truth to power, on paper and via electronic platforms.

This is a lively, important and flawed book about the role and function of journalism which is vital to our understanding of the global misuse of power.

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