Introduction

This introductory chapter sets the broader context of the book by drawing attention to core pathologies in US news and information systems. In particular, it draws attention to the run-amok commercialism that lies at the heart of these structural problems. Using President Donald Trump’s election as a departure point, it covers a wide array of symptoms, ranging from low-quality information, sensationalism, and other problems in mainstream news media to misinformation proliferating through social media. The chapter gives an overview of the entire book and lays out the major arguments. It also describes the political economic theoretical framework that guides the book’s analysis.

American Media Exceptionalism and the Public Option

Chapter 5 makes the case that a publicly subsidized news media system is journalism’s last best hope. It shows that when compared with that of other countries, US media is exceptional in being dominated by a handful of corporations, only lightly regulated, and primarily commercial. As well as tracing the historical roots of this “US media exceptionalism,” the chapter provides a historical analysis of US public media. It then gives a comparative analysis showing how little money Americans devote toward their public media system and a general survey of press subsidies around the world. The chapter concludes with some suggestions on how to construct a viable US public media system.

The Early Crisis and Missed Opportunities

Chapter 2 continues the historicizing of US journalism’s structural problems by drawing attention to the beginning of the contemporary press crisis of 2008–2009. Underscoring the missed opportunities in policy interventions, chapter 2 brings into focus the structural nature of the crisis and its relationship to both the internet and market failure. The chapter focuses specifically on the FCC’s policy actions and inactions during this time and leads into chapter 3 by tracing out the political economic roots of the journalism crisis. In addition, the chapter provides an overview of economic theories of journalism.

Historical Roots of US Press Freedoms and Failures

Chapter 1 historicizes the journalism crisis, showing that in the United States commercial news media institutions have always been in crisis. The chapter first summarizes the history of the US press and its freedoms under the First Amendment of the US Constitution and sketches out continuities in US press history in terms of democratic theory, market failure, and reform efforts. It goes on to outline a long unbroken tradition of radical media criticism and ongoing attempts to rein in the commercial excesses of US journalism. Finally, the chapter underscores the US press system’s structural contradictions that have rendered it prone to crisis.

Monopoly Control over Digital Infrastructures

Chapter 4 brings into focus various structural threats to journalism, including monopoly control over media infrastructures, the loss of public interest protections, digital divides, and the “Facebook problem.” It examines how monopolies—from platforms to traditional conglomerates and broadband cartels—threaten the entire news media system. The chapter goes on to provide an overview of why media policy matters for journalism and how different ownership structures affect media content. It then concludes with an in-depth discussion of Facebook’s relationship to journalism and the different schools of thought on how we should rein in monopolies.

How Commercialism Degrades Journalism

Chapter 3 provides an overview of the entire US media landscape, with an emphasis on the various degradations caused by commercial imperatives, such as the loss of local journalism and the structural collapse of commercial journalism. As media outlets desperately chase increasingly elusive revenues, they further debase journalism. Problems that emerge from journalism’s decline range from the turn to invasive and deceptive forms of advertising to a growing precarity in news labor. After discussing such problems, the chapter systematically goes through potential alternatives to the advertising revenue model and concludes that a public option is the best model going forward.

Conclusion

The conclusion drives home the argument that commercial journalism has failed to meet society’s communication needs that are required to support democracy. Therefore, we need non-market models for journalism. As well as advocating for a new public media system, the conclusion describes the policies and politics that are necessary to build such a system and discusses what these new public newsrooms would actually look like. In addition to calling for journalist- and community-owned and controlled news outlets, it argues that we need to frame this as a social democratic policy program that aims to entirely remake existing news organizations while also creating entirely new ones.