Abstract
This timely work by Ed Madison and Ben DeJarnette entitled Reimagining Journalism in a Post-Truth World attempts to tackle several important developments in journalism. It is a quick turnaround in relation to the contemporary examples it includes, which readers will appreciate. However, its heavy reliance on anecdotes and case studies are sometimes only tangentially related to post-truth. It reads as a journalistic offering and largely relies on news media resources rather than empirical research. Trump is used repeatedly throughout as the figure who has disrupted journalism’s status quo. Further contextualizing of the many relevant media examples could have enhanced the book, especially in relation to its attempt to tackle post-truth and journalism.
The title itself is ambitious, but this book almost entirely focuses on the United States. This is a succinct read comprising of a foreword by Frank Senso, former CNN correspondent and current director of the School of Media and Public Affairs at the George Washington University, an introduction, and five chapters focusing on different areas of reimagining: truth, trust, reach, revenue, and what’s next. Each reimagining further focuses on specific aspects of news and media curation.
The introduction highlights nine specific developments in journalism that the authors purport have led to journalism becoming a ‘dirty word’: gatekeepers losing control of their gates, journalism losing the power to enforce its own rules, new publishers (and audiences) gravitating toward the political poles, the Internet’s new gatekeepers not sharing journalism’s values, journalism’s watchdogs losing their teeth, journalism’s reform movement losing momentum, journalism’s traditional news products losing a generation, local newsrooms losing their scale, and American politics losing its soul. While some or all may be valid, there is little reliance on established literature and empirical findings. For instance, gatekeeping is listed twice but no gatekeeping literature is referenced (e.g. Shoemaker, 1991; Shoemaker and Vos, 2009). Furthermore, there is little explanation of how these were formulated.
Indeed, each development listed could be further scrutinized, particularly the last point. What does it mean to lose a soul? Does politics ever have a soul? Or are some politicians merely better at branding or propagating the idea of a country’s morality? The authors heavily rely on Thomas Jefferson to illustrate the loss of the country’s soul under Trump. Yet Jefferson, a slave owner, and the other founding fathers’ ideas mostly excluded all women of any ethnicity or race, or men who weren’t white.
Chapter 1 focuses on reimagining truth by examining the emergence of political comedy such as Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show, which when it became popularized in the mid-2000s was referred to as fake news (Borden and Tew, 2007). The term fake news has obviously evolved into a new meaning (Albright, 2017; Brennen, 2017). The chapter also discusses Glenn Greenwald as a journalist who challenges objectivity norms. Some discussion on advocacy or civic journalism could be useful here. Also, thoughts on how those mentioned impact on journalism is lacking, as Jon Stewart has always stated he is a comedian not a journalist (Berkowitz and Gutsche, 2012).
Chapter 2 discusses reimagining trust. It continues with a discussion of Trump and the need for journalists to listen to their audience. Without explicitly stating this, the chapter implies that through better audience engagement, journalists can regain audience trust. Chapter 3 uses VICE as a case study on how to reimagine reach looking at a precursor MTV. It also touches on how to engage millennials through social media platforms such as Snapchat. Chapter 4’s reimagining revenue includes paywalls and crowdfunding as new ways for news organizations to cope with decreased advertising profits. The authors include an interesting and important section on the let down of digital advertising.
The final chapter is a look forward into what is in store for journalism. Many final thoughts are covered including the uncertainty of new gatekeepers following traditional journalistic norms, and the question of whether artificial intelligence will replace journalists. There is also a call for universities to help journalism students better adjust to a changing industry. With time, empirical support, and further attention to detail, several ideas found in this book could develop into meaningful contributions to the field. Specifically, the reimagining chapters offered useful insight into how journalism is evolving.
But overall, the promise of exploring ‘journalism in a post-truth world’ was missing. The reader is left to make connections between political comedy, alternative news sources, profit-making initiatives, and the future of journalism and post-truth. Trump is the assumed figure of post-truth, without full explanation as to why. While there have been many failings of American journalists on their handling of Trump and his team, journalism began decades before Trump was born and will continue for decades after he is gone. Perhaps, changing the title to include Trump or expanding post-truth beyond Trump would have helped the book deliver.