Beyond News: The Case for Wisdom Journalism

Abstract

Recent waves of technological change and economic contraction have left traditional news organizations floundering. Most are cutting back — often drastically. Some will fold. One particularly chilling result is that the number of reporters covering city halls, statehouses and Baghdad is dropping. Our ability to be informed on public affairs seems at risk. “There is a diminishing supply of quality journalism,” warns Bill Keller, the executive editor of The New York Times. The question now echoing through journalism schools, opinion pages and, most urgently, newsrooms, is how that apparent decline might be slowed or even reversed. With a desperation characteristic of people whose livelihoods are at stake, journalists have been forced to rethink how “quality journalism” might be distributed and how it might be funded. Most have not, however, been rethinking what in these changing times “quality journalism” might be. In an online dialogue with readers, Keller supplies a definition with which the bulk of his fellow journalists might agree: “By quality journalism I mean the kind that involves experienced reporters going places, bearing witness, digging into records, developing sources, checking and double‐checking.” This, Keller tells his readers, is journalism that provides “the information you need to be an engaged citizen.” But is “quality journalism,” so defined, really the journalism citizens today require?