We've talked a lot on this show about the problems that news deserts, misinformation, and information silos present to democracy. Our guest this week says these things are all downstream from a much more fundamental disconnect between the need for a free press in a democracy and the models the United States has set up to make it happen.
Victor Pickard is the C. Edwin Baker Professor of Media Policy and Political Economy at the University of Pennsylvania and author of Democracy Without Journalism? Confronting the Misinformation Society. We discuss the history of market failures and policy choices that led to the decline of local journalism and the spread of misinformation.
Victor walks us through his vision for what a re-imagined public media ecosystem in the United States might look like and what it will take to get there. Examples like WBEZ's recent acquisition of the Chicago Sun-Times provide examples of what's possible. Candis and Chris discuss how Victor's arguments about the assault on public media are similar to what we heard from Derek W. Black about public education last year.
Additional Information
Democracy Without Journalism? Confronting the Misinformation Society
WBEZ acquires the Chicago Sun-Times
Related Episodes
News deserts are democracy deserts too
Public schools, not government schools
How democracies can win the war on reality
Ten thousand democracies
It’s good to be counted
Satire is good for more than just a few laughs
Tommie Smith: From sharecropper to Olympic protester
Generation Z and the future of democracy
How Democracies Die author Daniel Ziblatt on the ‘grinding work’ of democracy
What can Pennsylvania voters do about gerrymandering?
Fake news, clickbait, and the future of local journalism
Checking the President’s power
Is Colin Kaepernick a good democrat?
What is Democracy Works?
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
City Manager Unfiltered
Potencial Americano
The ASIC Podcast
The Chris Plante Show
Strict Scrutiny