Journalism 2050

How has the shifting nature of political influence impacted journalism?

When Ronald Reagan won the presidency, in 1980, it was a victory long in the making. For almost half a century, conservatives had plotted ways to cut taxes and undo workers’ rights. Their playbook for political influence went something like this: create a think tank, publish reputable reports, build relationships with journalists and politicians, and disseminate free-market ideas to the public, creating a new common sense.  Today, the art of political influence is rather different. Think tanks no longer claim the power they once did and, since the rise of social media, newspapers and traditional journalists have lost their grip on public opinion. Perhaps this new state of affairs was best captured by Elon Musk when, shortly after taking over Twitter, in 2023, he declared that all press inquiries would receive an automated reply with the poop emoji. That is not the move of someone who believes the press is an essential tool in influencing public opinion. In this episode of the Journalism 2050 podcast, cohosts Emily Bell and Heather Chaplin are joined by two guests: Kim Phillips Fein is a renowned historian of American conservatism and capitalism and the author of Invisible Hands: The Making of the Conservative Movement from the New Deal to Reagan, among other books. Samuel Earle is the author of Tory Nation: The Dark Legacy of the World’s Most Successful Political Party and a PhD candidate at Columbia Journalism School. Together, they ask: How has the nature of political influence changed? What are the implications for journalism? And what, if anything, can the left learn from the right’s success? Producer: Amanda Darrach [https://www.cjr.org/author/amanda-darrach] Research: Samuel Earle [https://muckrack.com/samuel-earle] Production Assistant: Riddhi Setty [https://www.cjr.org/author/riddhi-setty] Art Director: Katie Kosma [https://katiekosma.com/] Illustrator: Aaron Fernandez [https://aarontheillustrator.com/] Music: Henry Crooks

Journalism in the Age of Techno-Kings

Before Elon Musk, there was Henry Ford: an attention-seeking car manufacturer, newspaper owner, and media celebrity who pushed reactionary views on the public and transformed society around his business interests. “Fordism” was more than a mode of production, it was a way of organizing society, involving large factories, nuclear families, stable employment, and affordable cars, refrigerators, and televisions. In a new book, Muskism, Ben Tarnoff, a technology writer, and Quinn Slobodian, a historian at Boston University, analyze Musk in similar terms, as a maverick businessman who stands for a new type of society and a new social contract. They find that “Muskism” provides a far more dystopian package than Fordism’s offering. It is a world of strict and unforgiving hierarchies where governments exist in symbiotic relationship with Silicon Valley, social welfare erodes, and Musk is a self-appointed “techno-king.” Want safety or stability? Buy a Cybertruck.  In this episode of the Journalism 2050 podcast, Tarnoff and Slobodian join cohosts Emily Bell and Heather Chaplin to discuss Muskism’s vision of society, where it came from, and what the implications for journalism are. What does Muskism offer the public besides dystopia? How did Musk’s purchase of Twitter fit into his plans? What does journalism free from Muskism look like? Producer: Amanda Darrach [https://www.cjr.org/author/amanda-darrach] Production Coordinator: Hana Joy Research: Samuel Earle [https://muckrack.com/samuel-earle] Art Director: Katie Kosma [https://katiekosma.com/] Illustrator: Aaron Fernandez [https://aarontheillustrator.com/] Music: Henry Crooks

Nonprofit news outlets have proliferated, but it's too soon to dismiss profitable models for journalism

How can journalism survive? Perhaps the question would once have sounded unduly panicked, but it has only grown more pressing over the past twenty 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 [https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/07/12/news-reporters-journalism-jobs-census/]. In early February, the industry suffered another historic blow, as the Washington Post announced it was laying off nearly half its staff [https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/washington-post-diverse-coverage-layoffs-black-staffers-survey-color-funding.php#:~:text=In%20early%20February%2C%20the%20Washington,ethnicity%2C%20and%20communities%20of%20color.]. 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 UK.  Sahan Journal is one of a growing number of nonprofit news organizations that rely on philanthropic grants. (The Institute for Nonprofit News now counts over four hundred members.) Mill Media’s success is based on subscriptions. Both are thriving, and both provide models that others can follow. What are the risks and rewards of each approach? Have we been too quick to accept that journalism cannot be profitable in the digital age? And what changes when, with rising authoritarianism, the pressures confronting a free press become political as well as economic?  Suggested Reading: * “Straight to your inbox: meet the journalists shaking up local UK news [https://www.theguardian.com/media/article/2024/jul/28/mill-media-joshi-herrmann-interview-local-uk-news-substack-sheffield-manchester-birmingham-liverpool],” The Guardian, July 2024 * “Sahan Journal Is Built for When the National Media Leaves [https://www.cjr.org/the-interview/sahan-journal-vanan-murugesan-somali-immigration-ice-crackdown-community.php],” CJR, December 2025 Hosts: Emily Bell and Heather Chaplin [https://www.cjr.org/author/emily-bell-and-heather-chaplin] Producer: Amanda Darrach [https://www.cjr.org/author/amanda-darrach] Production Coordinator: Hana Joy Research: Samuel Earle [https://muckrack.com/samuel-earle] Art Director: Katie Kosma [https://katiekosma.com/] Illustrator: Aaron Fernandez [https://aarontheillustrator.com/] Music: Henry Crooks

What might a truly collaborative media—that sees the public as a partner rather than an audience—look like?

In 2016, Sarah Alvarez, a former civil-rights lawyer and reporter, reimagined what journalism could be. Rather than break news or publish stories on a website, her project, Outlier Media, promised to provide the people of Detroit with information on any property they wanted, via text message—all they had to do was ask. Alvarez hoped that with vetted information, locals could hold landlords to account and avoid property scams in an increasingly hostile housing market. It was to be the first of many such services that Outlier would provide, all centered around making important information more accessible, in line with people’s needs. “I was not satisfied with covering low-income communities for a higher-income audience,” she said [https://www.niemanlab.org/2018/03/by-mass-texting-local-residents-outlier-media-connects-low-income-news-consumers-to-useful-personalized-data/] in 2018. “I wanted to cover issues for and with low-income news consumers.” Outlier Media now stands as an example of an innovative local media landscape defying the darkest prophecies of journalism’s future. Outlier has pioneered a new journalistic approach—highly interactive, collaborative, responsive, practical, community-focused—to old goals: holding the powerful to account. Its text message system exists alongside original investigative reporting, which is targeted “on issues where better information alone can’t make a difference,” as its site explains. Outlier’s radical mission is journalism that serves not people’s curiosity but their material needs. In this episode of the Journalism 2050 Podcast, Alvarez and Candice Fortman join Emily Bell and Heather Chaplin to discuss community-focused news, how the media landscape has changed over the last decade, and what the future holds. Alvarez is the James B. Steele Chair in Journalism Innovation at Temple University’s Klein College of Media and Communication. Fortman is a media consultant who served as Outlier Media’s Executive Editor between 2019 and 2024. Suggested Reading/Listening: How Outlier is helping Detroiters get millions of dollars back from Wayne County, Nieman Lab [https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/04/how-outlier-is-helping-detroiters-get-millions-of-dollars-back-from-wayne-county/], April 2025 Candice Fortman, Commencement address for the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism Class of 2025 [https://www.youtube.com/live/K3CSxj3Fpng?t=3223s], May 2025 Civic Guides: How to solve everyday issues in Detroit, influence local decision-making and make the city work for you — written for Detroiters by Detroiters [https://outliermedia.org/civic-guides/], Outlier Media (series) Producer: Amanda Darrach [https://www.cjr.org/author/amanda-darrach] Production Coordinator: Hana Joy Research: Samuel Earle [https://muckrack.com/samuel-earle] Art Director: Katie Kosma [https://katiekosma.com/] Illustrator: Aaron Fernandez [https://aarontheillustrator.com/] Music: Henry Crooks

The Gateway to Trump: The Political Legacy of the Gawker Trial

In 2007, Valleywag, Gawker’s gossip column devoted to Silicon Valley, published a short piece about a then-little-known venture capitalist and tech founder, under the headline “Peter Thiel is totally gay, people [https://www.gawkerarchives.com/335894/peter-thiel-is-totally-gay-people].” Thiel’s sexuality wasn’t a secret, nor was the piece mocking. “Peter Thiel, the smartest VC in the world, is gay,” it read. “More power to him.” But it was the first time this information was made public, and Thiel didn’t welcome the attention. He vowed privately to get revenge on Valleywag. It took him almost a decade for his quest to succeed. In March 2016, a lawsuit against Gawker brought by Hulk Hogan over the publication of a leaked sex tape resulted in its bankruptcy. Hogan, like everyone else, only discovered the identity of his mysterious and dedicated benefactor after the trial. The Gawker trial was a turning point, both for Thiel personally and for perceptions about the tech industry. His friends would say that, without the Gawker trial, Thiel’s early endorsement of Donald Trump that same year was unthinkable. To others, Thiel’s readiness to simply shut down an online publication that he did not like revealed, perhaps more than any other event up to that point, the authoritarian tendencies of the tech industry and how hollow its commitments to “free information” were. The outlook for digital journalism was ominous. What are the lessons from the Gawker trial, ten years later? What is its political legacy? And how can digital journalism build a safe future in the face of such severe threats? In this episode of Journalism 2050, Emily Bell is joined by three guests. Maria Bustillos is a journalist, editor, and self-described “information activist” who reported from the courtroom during the Gawker trial. Samuel Earle is the author of Tory Nation: The Dark Legacy of the World’s Most Successful Political Party and a PhD candidate at Columbia Journalism School. Marine Doux is the cofounder and editorial director of Médianes and a research fellow at the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia Journalism School.  SHOW NOTES: “Hulk Hogan is the Donald Trump of ‘sports entertainment,’ [https://popula.com/2022/02/01/hulk-hogan-is-the-donald-trump-of-sports-entertainment/]” Maria Bustillos, Popula Conspiracy: Peter Thiel, Hulk Hogan, Gawker, and the Anatomy of Intrigue [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/555492/conspiracy-by-ryan-holiday/], Ryan Holiday “Editorial Independence Means Technological Independence [https://www.cjr.org/tow_center/editorial-independence-means-technological-independence.php],” Owen Huchon, CJR Médianes Studio—A European Partner for Independent Media [https://www.medianes.org/medianes-studio-a-european-partner-for-independent-media/] Producer: Amanda Darrach [https://www.cjr.org/author/amanda-darrach] Production Coordinator: Hana Joy Research: Samuel Earle [https://muckrack.com/samuel-earle] Art Director: Katie Kosma [https://katiekosma.com/] Illustrator: Aaron Fernandez [https://aarontheillustrator.com/] Music: Henry Crooks