Veteran journalism professor Jay Rosen on four things he’s learned after 25 years of teaching:
- The more people who participate in the press the stronger it will be.
- The profession of journalism went awry when it began to adopt the View from Nowhere.
- The news system will improve when it is made more useful to people.
- Making facts public does not a public make; information alone will not inform us.
This is how I read these bullet points:
- Journalism, like government, is strengthened by public participation.
- Striving for objectivity or balance isn’t the same as isn’t the same as not taking sides.
- How people use information has changed. Journalism needs to adapt to these changes.
- The daily media clamor drowns out what people actually want to know. The easiest way to find out is to ask them.