So yeah, that’s a provocative headline. It feels accusatory, exclusionary, even hurtful. Welcome to the news-reading experience of vast swaths of the population.
We have to face the truth. Most mainstream news outlets create harm in our communities. They misrepresent, exploit experiences, scapegoat those experiencing marginalization and even drive further harm through racist, transphobic, classist, ableist, patriarchal. and capitalist reporting. This is true of the U.K. where we’ve been working together — and on different levels experiencing harm first-hand — but it is also true of legacy media in the U.S. and around the world.
“I don’t see many people like me on the news, but I’m quite happy about that. I don’t trust the news trying to tell our stories.” This is what a Muslim woman told Bureau Local (U.K.) when trying to explain her fear of the media.
Time’s up on news outlets that operate this way for profit, political influence, and the protection of the status quo. The good news (no pun intended) is that projects like Media 2070 (U.S.), BBC and Beyond (U.K.), and organizations like The Objective (U.S.) are filling the accountability vacuum and challenging the very industry that holds up “accountability” and “holding truth to power” as its most celebrated anthems.
Tomorrow’s news industry will change as a result of this accountability. It will challenge the often heard excuse that these communities are “hard to reach” and acknowledge they have been badly served and are reached and served best when ownership and representation is rooted in communities. Just look at the growing number of community newsrooms and initiatives that put equity and community power at the heart of their operations. In the U.K., see Greater Govanhill, The Ferret, The Bristol Cable, Black Ballad, and Gal Dem. In the U.S. see City Bureau, Outlier Media, Scalawag, Resolve Philly, Tiny News Collective and the Future of Local News Coalition’s prediction this year to dream bigger or lose out.
Tomorrow’s journalism will act on multiple fronts. It will challenge the power this industry has hoarded and weaponized for too long. It will share and shift that power (Check out this, this, and this). Crucially, it will support the building of new power in communities. Integral to this is for those of us inside to stop centering ourselves and trying to own the solutions, stop looking only within our small, privileged industry and to step aside, make space, and get behind others.
This past year, via The People’s Newsroom, we ran a pilot to support those who’ve been harmed by the media to reclaim it for their benefit. In doing so, we met tomorrow’s leaders.
We met Shakria Morka, who said, “As a Black, disabled woman, the experiences of neurotypical white men who have dominated traditional journalism are directly oppositional to mine.” She called for transformational inclusion and said, “Inclusion means truly valuing the contributions, perspectives and lived experience of marginalized people and allowing us to take up paid roles.” She said the work is not inclusive “if the nature of journalism itself does not change and if we fail to rip apart harmful stereotypes and consult communities.”
We met Shazia Ali, who said that opening a newspaper filled her with trepidation as she feared what Islamaphobic slur would then show up in physical hate. Yet when she discovered Amaliah, a Muslim women’s publication in the U.K., she said, “When I go on to Amaliah’s site, “I can breathe easier. That is what news belonging feels like.” She’s now a BBC journalism apprentice, and says she’s “doing it for all the communities that the news has failed.”
Shazia’s mantra is where the future lies. Tomorrow’s journalism belongs to those who’ve been excluded, harmed, and failed by the media. It belongs to the communities that most need its power. In their hands it can be reimagined and reclaimed as a true community service that enacts positive change.
We all know there is a crisis in journalism. There is a breakdown in the business model and a breakdown in trust, and those two things are not unrelated. That is down to who holds the power and who tells the stories. This is because, for the group of people running the industry, the system works just fine as it is. Yet it’s worth remembering that they actually represent a tiny proportion of the population. It’s impossible for them to reflect the true richness of society, but if we let them, they will preside over the death of journalism.
So, we’re not going to let them. We’re going to shift this power and support the next generation of journalists, editors, and owners to reclaim journalism for us all.
Megan Lucero is the founder of the Bureau Local and People’s Newsroom. Shirish Kulkarni is a journalist, researcher and community organizer.
So yeah, that’s a provocative headline. It feels accusatory, exclusionary, even hurtful. Welcome to the news-reading experience of vast swaths of the population.
We have to face the truth. Most mainstream news outlets create harm in our communities. They misrepresent, exploit experiences, scapegoat those experiencing marginalization and even drive further harm through racist, transphobic, classist, ableist, patriarchal. and capitalist reporting. This is true of the U.K. where we’ve been working together — and on different levels experiencing harm first-hand — but it is also true of legacy media in the U.S. and around the world.
“I don’t see many people like me on the news, but I’m quite happy about that. I don’t trust the news trying to tell our stories.” This is what a Muslim woman told Bureau Local (U.K.) when trying to explain her fear of the media.
Time’s up on news outlets that operate this way for profit, political influence, and the protection of the status quo. The good news (no pun intended) is that projects like Media 2070 (U.S.), BBC and Beyond (U.K.), and organizations like The Objective (U.S.) are filling the accountability vacuum and challenging the very industry that holds up “accountability” and “holding truth to power” as its most celebrated anthems.
Tomorrow’s news industry will change as a result of this accountability. It will challenge the often heard excuse that these communities are “hard to reach” and acknowledge they have been badly served and are reached and served best when ownership and representation is rooted in communities. Just look at the growing number of community newsrooms and initiatives that put equity and community power at the heart of their operations. In the U.K., see Greater Govanhill, The Ferret, The Bristol Cable, Black Ballad, and Gal Dem. In the U.S. see City Bureau, Outlier Media, Scalawag, Resolve Philly, Tiny News Collective and the Future of Local News Coalition’s prediction this year to dream bigger or lose out.
Tomorrow’s journalism will act on multiple fronts. It will challenge the power this industry has hoarded and weaponized for too long. It will share and shift that power (Check out this, this, and this). Crucially, it will support the building of new power in communities. Integral to this is for those of us inside to stop centering ourselves and trying to own the solutions, stop looking only within our small, privileged industry and to step aside, make space, and get behind others.
This past year, via The People’s Newsroom, we ran a pilot to support those who’ve been harmed by the media to reclaim it for their benefit. In doing so, we met tomorrow’s leaders.
We met Shakria Morka, who said, “As a Black, disabled woman, the experiences of neurotypical white men who have dominated traditional journalism are directly oppositional to mine.” She called for transformational inclusion and said, “Inclusion means truly valuing the contributions, perspectives and lived experience of marginalized people and allowing us to take up paid roles.” She said the work is not inclusive “if the nature of journalism itself does not change and if we fail to rip apart harmful stereotypes and consult communities.”
We met Shazia Ali, who said that opening a newspaper filled her with trepidation as she feared what Islamaphobic slur would then show up in physical hate. Yet when she discovered Amaliah, a Muslim women’s publication in the U.K., she said, “When I go on to Amaliah’s site, “I can breathe easier. That is what news belonging feels like.” She’s now a BBC journalism apprentice, and says she’s “doing it for all the communities that the news has failed.”
Shazia’s mantra is where the future lies. Tomorrow’s journalism belongs to those who’ve been excluded, harmed, and failed by the media. It belongs to the communities that most need its power. In their hands it can be reimagined and reclaimed as a true community service that enacts positive change.
We all know there is a crisis in journalism. There is a breakdown in the business model and a breakdown in trust, and those two things are not unrelated. That is down to who holds the power and who tells the stories. This is because, for the group of people running the industry, the system works just fine as it is. Yet it’s worth remembering that they actually represent a tiny proportion of the population. It’s impossible for them to reflect the true richness of society, but if we let them, they will preside over the death of journalism.
So, we’re not going to let them. We’re going to shift this power and support the next generation of journalists, editors, and owners to reclaim journalism for us all.
Megan Lucero is the founder of the Bureau Local and People’s Newsroom. Shirish Kulkarni is a journalist, researcher and community organizer.
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Eric Thurm Journalists think of themselves as workers
A.J. Bauer Covering the right wrong
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Simon Galperin Philanthropy stops investing in corporate media
Tamar Charney Flux is the new stability
Jim VandeHei There is no “peak newsletter”
Alan Henry A reckoning with why trust in news is so low
Peter Sterne AI enters the newsroom
Amethyst J. Davis The slight of the great contraction
Basile Simon Towards supporting criminal accountability
Sam Guzik AI will start fact-checking. We may not like the results.
Josh Schwartz The AI spammers are coming
John Davidow A year of intergenerational learning
Rachel Glickhouse Humanizing newsrooms will be a badge of honor
Anita Varma Journalism prioritizes the basic need for survival
Pia Frey Publishers start polling their users at scale
Kaitlyn Wells We’ll prioritize media literacy for children
Eric Nuzum A focus on people instead of power
Karina Montoya More reporters on the antitrust beat
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Jessica Clark Open discourse retrenches
Cassandra Etienne Local news fellowships will help fight newsroom inequities
Jenna Weiss-Berman The economic downturn benefits the podcasting industry. (No, really!)
Rodney Gibbs Recalibrating how we work apart
Kathy Lu We need emotionally agile newsroom leaders
Jaden Amos TikTok personality journalists continue to rise
Cindy Royal Yes, journalists should learn to code, but…
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Brian Stelter Finding new ways to reach news avoiders
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Sarah Marshall A web channel strategy won’t be enough
Mar Cabra The inevitable mental health revolution
Andrew Donohue We’ll find out whether journalism can, indeed, save democracy
S. Mitra Kalita “Everything sucks. Good luck to you.”
Anika Anand Independent news businesses lead the way on healthy work cultures
Parker Molloy We’ll reach new heights of moral panic
Jesse Holcomb Buffeted, whipped, bullied, pulled
Kaitlin C. Miller Harassment in journalism won’t get better, but we’ll talk about it more openly
Danielle K. Brown and Kathleen Searles DEI efforts must consider mental health and online abuse
Ryan Gantz “I’m sorry, but I’m a large language model”
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Christoph Mergerson The rot at the core of the news business
Dana Lacey Tech will screw publishers over
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Wilson Liévano Diaspora journalism takes the next step
Nikki Usher This is the year of the RSS reader. (Really!)
Michael Schudson Journalism gets more and more difficult
Alex Perry New paths to transparency without Twitter
David Cohn AI made this prediction
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Surya Mattu Data journalists learn from photojournalists
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Al Lucca Digital news design gets interesting again
Alex Sujong Laughlin Credit where it’s due
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Alexandra Borchardt The year of the climate journalism strategy
Eric Holthaus As social media fragments, marginalized voices gain more power
Don Day The news about the news is bad. I’m optimistic.
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Jessica Maddox Journalists keep getting manipulated by internet culture
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Alexandra Svokos Working harder to reach audiences where they are
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Paul Cheung More news organizations will realize they are in the business of impact, not eyeballs
Peter Bale Rising costs force more digital innovation
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Andrew Losowsky Journalism realizes the replacement for Twitter is not a new Twitter
Walter Frick Journalists wake up to the power of prediction markets
Sarah Stonbely Growth in public funding for news and information at the state and local levels
Martina Efeyini Talk to Gen Z. They’re the experts of Gen Z.
Emily Nonko Incarcerated reporters get more bylines
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Ryan Kellett Airline-like loyalty programs try to tie down news readers
Tre'vell Anderson Continued culpability in anti-trans campaigns
Jim Friedlich Local journalism steps up to the challenge of civic coverage
Brian Moritz Rebuilding the news bundle
Kerri Hoffman Podcasting goes local
Anna Nirmala News organizations get new structures
Cory Bergman The AI content flood
Julia Beizer News fatigue shows us a clear path forward
Laxmi Parthasarathy Unlocking the silent demand for international journalism
Dannagal G. Young Stop rewarding elite performances of identity threat
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Larry Ryckman We’ll work together with our competitors
Matt Rasnic More newsroom workers turn to organized labor
Nicholas Jackson There will be launches — and we’ll keep doing the work
Bill Grueskin Local news will come to rely on AI
Susan Chira Equipping local journalism
Michael W. Wagner The backlash against pro-democracy reporting is coming
Zizi Papacharissi Platforms are over
Sue Cross Thinking and acting collectively to save the news
Mario García More newsrooms go mobile-first
Stefanie Murray The year U.S. media stops screwing around and becomes pro-democracy
Ariel Zirulnick Journalism doubles down on user needs
Moreno Cruz Osório Brazilian journalism turns wounds into action
Ryan Nave Citizen journalism, but make it equitable
Jakob Moll Journalism startups will think beyond English
Lisa Heyamoto The independent news industry gets a roadmap to sustainability
Cari Nazeer and Emily Goligoski News organizations step up their support for caregivers
Janet Haven ChatGPT and the future of trust
Mauricio Cabrera It’s no longer about audiences, it’s about communities
Richard Tofel The press might get better at vetting presidential candidates
Mary Walter-Brown and Tristan Loper Mission-driven metrics become our North Star
Victor Pickard The year journalism and capitalism finally divorce
Joanne McNeil Facebook and the media kiss and make up
Tim Carmody Newsletter writers need a new ethics
Anthony Nadler Confronting media gerrymandering
Gabe Schneider Well-funded journalism leaders stop making disparate pay
Burt Herman The year AI truly arrives — and with it the reckoning