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This study examines the key factors involved when news work is done through collaboration. The author draws on two years of ethnographic observation, interviews and textual analysis in examining two collaborations, the Dallas Media Collaborative and the Credible Messenger Reporting Project, and assesses the variables at play when journalists work alongside groups outside the traditional journalistic field—including nonprofits, universities, think tanks, artistic groups, and citizen journalists. Building on existing literature, the study defines collaboration as a partnership among organizations, at least one of which is committed to traditional journalistic values (i.e., truth, verification, independence and public service). Drawing on the "hierarchy of influences," it lays out variables that impact whether a collaboration is likely to challenge those values: the identities of the partners, the level of integration of the partners, and the extent of the partnership's commitment in terms of time and scope. The findings suggest that, while inclusion of non-journalistic entities is important, the degree to which new kinds of partners are integrated into collaborative editorial processes ultimately determines whether they have the ability to transform the field. When they are highly integrated, the study argues, collaborations enable onetime "extramedia" influences to impact journalism at the organizational level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how journalists addressed Kobe Bryant's 2003 rape case as they constructed the basketball star's memory through coverage of his death. Bryant, who died in a helicopter crash on Jan. 26, 2020, was accused of raping a hotel clerk in Colorado; charges were dropped when the woman refused to testify, but the parties reached a civil settlement. This textual analysis examines 488 news stories about Bryant's death, content produced by 18 U.S. news organizations (12 newspapers, two magazines, three online-only publications and a cable broadcast outlet) between Jan. 26 and Oct. 31, 2020. It finds that coverage created a field of discourse that mainly celebrated Bryant for his athletic greatness, as a family man, cultural icon and supporter of women's basketball. The paper argues that, despite the influence of social media and the #MeToo movement, journalists continue to oversimplify and cleanse the narratives of famous men with problematic pasts. The paper calls on journalists to draw from feminist theory and utilize triangulated reporting methods to incorporate marginalized viewpoints when memorializing famous men with problematic pasts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tracing back to the work of Isaiah Berlin and the debates of the Hutchins Commission, discussions of First Amendment theory have long been divided into interpretations of "negative" rights protecting speakers from interference and "positive" rights ensuring that the public has the right to a quality information system. This paper explores how a First Amendment framework consisting of these two approaches breaks down in a networked communication ecosystem in which the lines between communicator and audience are increasingly blurred. The analysis explores these questions amid ongoing debates over regulating platforms and the possibility of increased public intervention in the floundering news industry. The paper builds on previous scholarship that has deemed First Amendment theory "inadequate," incorporating the work of Mike Ananny, Joshua Braun, Victor Pickard, Phillip Napoli, and others. It argues that the current information system is too complex for a simple binary approach to First Amendment theory. Instead, it calls for a reflexive approach that embraces how these perspectives interrelate, one that calls for protecting the rights of speakers, but doing so in a way that characterizes them as members of a larger collective of listeners whose interests must be served. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital technology is transforming life and is beginning to have a profound effect on individual psychic life and the wider social milieu. This article seeks to understand the nature of the new technology and its implications for personal life, culture, and education. The scene is set by comparing the introduction of printing to the revolution inaugurated by digital technology. This new age is often called "postmodern," and some of the characteristics of the age suggested by Lyotard, Baudrillard, McLuhan, and others are identified. The cultural impact of technology, according to Heidegger, is outlined, together with the interpretation in terms of digital technology proposed by Dreyfus and Spinosa. This is illustrated with examples and compared with the position of other thinkers. Finally, the consequences for education, including universities, are presented, and some proposals for approaches to education in terms of meaning, embodiment, and teacher-student relationship are considered.

The book "Avoiding the News: Reluctant Audiences for Journalism" by Benjamin Toff, Ruth Palmer, and Rasmus Kleis Nielsen explores the phenomenon of news avoidance and why a significant portion of the population chooses not to consume news. The authors define news avoiders as those who intentionally or unintentionally do not consume news produced by professional journalists. They find that news avoiders are more likely to be young, female, and from lower socioeconomic classes. The book argues that three key variables influence news avoidance: identities, ideologies, and infrastructures. The authors provide a framework for understanding news avoidance and call for change in journalism to meet the needs of these audiences. [Extracted from the article]

Amid concerns of 'market failure' in the U.S. commercial news industry, this paper explores more than a decade's worth of scholarly arguments that government intervention and investment is the best solution to what many deem a crisis in American journalism. Through the lenses of First Amendment theory and political economy, the analysis examines a range of ideas and proposals that, in many ways, began with Robert W. McChesney and John Nichols' The Death and Life of American Journalism in 2010 and continue up through Victor Pickard's Democracy Without Journalism: Confronting the Misinformation Society in 2020. The paper concludes that, while a 'positive' interpretation of the First Amendment would seem to demand such intervention, the window of opportunity has closed due to a range of political and economic forces that have either developed or become further entrenched over the past decade. To that end, it calls on journalists and journalism scholars to work to shift the discourse of journalism, to characterise it as an essential, nonpartisan public good – one no different than education. It argues that such a shift, along with enough evidence of further market failure, could someday help inspire the necessary political and economic will to help rescue the floundering news industry on a wider scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]