Media is like a flu shot for democracy


I’ve stated that “trust is the new black” and that the press should be “the immune system of democracy.”

Craig Newmark

I’d like to think of journalism as the “immune system,” not the “the press.”

He also some thoughts on the business model in the video, seeing a future in membership and philanthropy models, which he says will be stronger than advertising-centric models. He predicts NPR will be a dominant player in media by 2020.

Newmark may be right, but I don’t see that happening except for a few media organizations. NPR and PBS are certainly among those. The news business, by my guess, will remain by and large a business with advertising the key revenue driver and dominated by companies that provide economic value (a healthy return on investment) to their owners. But it’s interesting to think about how the media environment envisioned by Newmark would work.

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