How can journalism survive? Perhaps the question would once have sounded unduly panicked, but it has only grown more pressing over the past 20 years. Between 2004 and 2019, newspapers lost an astonishing 77 percent of their jobs — more than any other industry on record, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In early February, the industry suffered another historic blow, as The Washington Post announced it was laying off nearly half its staff. When even a legacy media outlet like the Post struggles — when even ownership by Jeff Bezos, who has a net worth of two hundred and fifty billion dollars, cannot guarantee stability — it is easy to wonder what hope there is. Is journalism slowly, or not so slowly, going kaput?
Not so fast.
In this episode of Journalism 2050, we’re joined by two guests who show — in different yet equally promising ways — what the future of journalism can look like. Vanan Murugesan is the executive director of Sahan Journal, a widely acclaimed local news organization in Minneapolis that was set up in 2019 to cover immigrants and people of color. Joshi Herrmann is the founder of Mill Media, which launched in Manchester in 2020 and now provides high-quality local journalism across six different cities in the U.K.
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