“We need a journalism that reaches out beyond elites”
“Chasing subscription dollars is bad for journalism,” argues Nikki Usher, associate professor at the University of Illinois in the College of Media’s Journalism Department, in her new book “News for the Rich, White, and Blue: How Place and Power Distort American Journalism”.
As a guest in the latest episode of Reuters Institute’s podcast, Usher talks to Meera Selva, Deputy Director of the Institute, about reaching out beyond elites, and about the challenges around equity, diversity and sustainability in journalism.
In their conversation, the two women explore the structures that determine who makes the news and who accesses news, and what can be done to ensure the news industry runs on a more sustainable and equitable footing.
“The people who can pay for news, and the people producing and writing the content, thinking about the content, are all members, increasingly so, of a global elite and the way to make money is no longer through advertising but through subscriptions,” Nikki Usher says.
“I think it’s really important to think about what the implications are when the news media that provides the most robust coverage of events around the world and of government and politics, particularly in the United States, is increasingly less representative of the people it purports to cover,” she argues.
Usher talks about news inequality, on funding news and rethinking their role, on equity of access to journalism schools, on why diversity in newsrooms matters and why we need a journalism that reaches out beyond elites.
You can enjoy this very interesting conversation HERE.
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