Manifesto

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Media Re:public Manifesto

In the United States, which relies more than any country in the world on for-profit businesses to meet its needs for news and information, the crisis created for traditional US news media by the Internet represents a growing threat to the ideal of a democratic public sphere. Financial pressures on traditional media, especially general interest newspapers, has led to their failure to adequately serve the information needs of their audiences. Specifically, traditional media outlets are:

• failing to educate citizens on the world outside the US, in a time of increasing globalization
• cutting back on investigative journalism and other in-depth reporting, neglecting their role as watchdog
• ignoring serious social policy issues like education, gun control, poverty, etc.
• reducing reporting resources to the point where they can no longer guarantee that they will provide comprehensive coverage of local issues and events

Meanwhile, a decade of explosive growth in online media, both amateur and professional, has produced an abundance of alternatives to traditional media sources. While there is much more research to be done, there is increasing evidence that this vibrant new sector is not fulfilling the hope that it would address the failings of or even replace traditional structures:

• community news sites turn out to be less responsive and open to the public than expected, and both individual sites and aggregators focused on citizen journalism are falling far short of their own targets for original reporting (this is combo of Pew, U Missouri and our own observations)
• the overwhelming majority of online media sites are based on organizational and editorial models that are inherently incapable of addressing the specific tasks of international reporting, in-depth journalism and comprehensive coverage;
• commercial sites that potentially have the structure to take on bigger projects are mostly not doing so - they face the same limitations of online advertising to support extensive professional reporting staffs as traditional media; and
• both the volunteer energy and the commercial money fueling new media outlets is overwhelmingly skewed towards coverage of politics and technology, leaving huge thematic and geographic areas all but ignored.

Many well-intentioned projects to address these problems are limited in their potential from the start. Media Re:public has identified the following characteristics that most often result in projects that do not adequately identify and serve the needs of a defined audience:

• over-dependent on the inspiration and expertise of a single person or very small homogenous group
• primarily driven by the interests or needs of the content producer(s) rather than the value of the resulting product to the audience
• failing to acknowledge existing media (traditional or new) working in the same niche
• defining success primarily by audience size and/or advertising revenue
• not designed to take advantage of the best available technology, too dependent on a rigid technological model, or not structured to incorporate emerging technologies as they become available
• unrealistic expectations of growth of audience, contributors, or both and inadequate evaluation systems
• mismatched skill sets: most journalists are neither managers nor technologists, not everyone who is passionate about an issue is a good communicator, etc.

New and emerging digital media technologies have enormous potential to create a news and information environment that provides the accurate, balanced and complete information we expect from the news media and much more. But we know enough now about the tendencies of the current traditional and alternative media to assert that this will not happen without support from groups dedicated to high-quality media in the public interest. This support should focus its efforts on projects that observe the following principles:

• understanding and meeting the needs of the target public(s) drives all aspects of program design and implementation
• engaging relevant civil society and community organizations and media entities to avoid duplication and draw on existing expertise is essential, even if it requires persistent efforts to achieve
• cross-disciplinary collaboration and the desire to learn new skills are key to success in the networked environment

On the level of policy, the philanthropic community could add its voice in support of network neutrality and efforts to improve the United States' miserable record in providing true broadband Internet accessible to the public, regardless of ability to pay.

even when unprofitable;

educate the audience to be better and more active consumers of news, recognizing that the vast majority will remain essentially passive;

• promote efforts to extend the true accessibility of broadband Internet to the public, even when unprofitable;

• support civil society organizations in developing their use of new media in ways that promote not only advocacy but also independent journalism

For these efforts to succeed, it is important to enable international linkages in all areas:

• experiments in other media systems, including developing countries, are developing technologies and models that have applications in the US
• the media are increasingly global, and the U.S. is not a market leader: contact and collaboration with scholars and practioners in other countries is critically important
• international coverage, which is in decline in the U.S., can be improved and increased through collaboration with media producers of all kinds around the world

leverage the centuries of combined expertise and experience extant in the journalism corps, providing the tools and skills that will enable journalists to participate in the new environment when their current employers are reluctant or unable to do so;

• support networked efforts that put public service function first and that use the best of new and existing media to create media that complements rather than competing with existing news media;
• challenge existing public media to fulfill its mission in the new digital environment;

players and various models of al In order to realize this potential, concerted efforts are required by groups motivated by the

serves the public 

is needed to support an engaged, informed public

for complete are struggling to save their businesses. Professional journalists are desperate to save their jobs. Big entertainment and technology companies are building online empires designed to collect mass audiences, regardless of the content. Meanwhile, political and technology bloggers are talking to each other and their book agents about their growing impact. Citizen journalists are wondering just how long this will continue to be fun. The majority of the public is watching TV and paying little attention.

The goal of an informed public is not at the top of anyone's agenda. This is even more true for the less wealthy, less wired, less active public(s).

It is critical for those who care about an informed public to shift their focus from the self-identified needs of content producers new and old and focus instead on the needs of the audience for news and information. Projects to do this should aim to:

• understand and promote the functions and qualities of news and information that will serve the needs of various communities, completely independent of the model of production or distribution;
• discard the myth that the US media system was ever "perfect" and aim instead to build the best possible system going forward;
• leverage the centuries of combined expertise and experience extant in the journalism corps, providing the tools and skills that will enable journalists to participate in the new environment when their current employers are reluctant or unable to do so;
• support networked efforts that put public service function first and that use the best of new and existing media to create media that complements rather than competing with existing news media;
• challenge existing public media to fulfill its mission in the new digital environment;
• educate the audience to be better and more active consumers of news, recognizing that the vast majority will remain essentially passive;
• promote efforts to extend the true accessibility of broadband Internet to the public, even when unprofitable;
• support civil society organizations in developing their use of new media in ways that promote not only advocacy but also independent journalism

For these efforts to succeed, it is important to enable international linkages in all areas:

• experiments in other media systems, including developing countries, are developing technologies and models that have applications in the US
• the media are increasingly global, and the U.S. is not a market leader: contact and collaboration with scholars and practioners in other countries is critically important
• international coverage, which is in decline in the U.S., can be improved and increased through collaboration with media producers of all kinds around the world

THE END

Send us a half million dollars and we'll send detailed instructions. people and institutions are struggling to address these issues, but we believe that many