By Autumn Telles
November 12, 2025
It is often said these days that legacy media may not be long for this world. But this may in fact be good news for journalism. While traditional mass communication is succumbing to a toxic mix of hostility from elected leaders, shady business deals, decreasing ad revenue, and broken trust, the tools for a renaissance of reporting are some of the very things killing the traditional legacy business model.
We must first distinguish between the business of delivering news and the actual matter of reporting it. While the current business models have been dying for a while (at least as far as producing actual news goes), the business model for supporting reporting and delivering news to the public has evolved and changed repeatedly over the last century and a half. Indeed, the very tools accused of killing the business of journalism – social media platforms and artificial intelligence – provide the tools for rebuilding actual journalism with modern, sustainable business models. But this won’t happen on its own. Through a mixture of carefully targeted government action (that avoids content regulation in violation of the First Amendment) and active choices by those who care about finding reliable sources of news, we can turn the predictions of doom into a virtuous cycle.
Concentration and the End of Traditional Journalism
Over the last 30 years, traditional media have consolidated to levels previously unimaginable. This leads to both constant cutting of reporters in the quest for “efficiencies” to pay off the massive debt these companies take on to consolidate to please Wall Street investors. This reduces the production of real news, forcing outlets to recycle the same content over and over. Even worse, with addictive short-form social media, traditional long form media and broadcast are becoming irrelevant. The ongoing attacks from conservative elites have helped to erode public trust in traditional journalism, while consumers increasingly get their news from so-called “truth tellers” that promote conspiracy theories online that algorithms favor. Meanwhile, people searching for information often sift through massive amounts of online content, many unconcerned about distinguishing credible information from deliberate falsehoods.
Comprehensive, factual, and comparatively measured journalism is already at a disadvantage in the competition for our attention online. The comparatively small amount of high-quality news content is drowned out by a high volume of misinformation, AI slop and other low-quality, more easily produced content that our lizard brains are naturally more responsive to. The problem is compounded by a decades-spanning trend of newspapers being bought up and consolidated by hedge funds and private equity firms, only to have to desperately claw at an ever-shrinking pot of ad money. This financial squeeze has contributed to the disappearance of 40% of local outlets in the last 20 years, meaning fewer community stories are ever reported.
Meanwhile, so-called “digital natives” are flocking to social media platforms, while newspapers’ and broadcasters’ most active viewers turn gray. This new generation of readers/watchers brings a new set of preferences: Gone are the days of skimming the daily paper along with your morning coffee or gathering around the television for your family’s favorite evening news program; this new audience opts instead to leave what news reaches them, and when, up to the algorithms. In a typical information system, we might have called these people “information seekers,” but the current system is far from typical, and the data tells us modern audiences aren’t doing much seeking at all. Social media has fundamentally changed our news consumption behaviors and will undoubtedly impact the relationship future generations will have with the news.
Unfortunately, the same factors afflicting mainstream media are also eroding an already tenuous trust with the public and have driven them towards other sources of information, namely news influencers, or “newsfluencers” who take the form of bloggers, content creators, podcasters and streamers. Some of these individuals produce original journalistic work, but many merely comment on the news or spread misinformation and conspiracy theories, all while disparaging actual journalists. For better or worse, the internet is not a newsroom and there are no codes of ethics, few fact-checking protocols, no editors-in-chief. With audiences increasingly gravitating toward these newsfluencers over objective reporting, the standards for high-quality journalism slip or evaporate entirely – and the individual competencies necessary to traverse this evolving media landscape are far from universal. But the fragmentation of our media and news landscape isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it may even be the solution journalism needs.
Fragmentation: A new beginning?
You get the picture – the Fourth Estate is going through a tumultuous and at times painful transition. But on the other side of this awkward intermediary stage could be a future where journalists can deliver the news without dependence on ratings or fear of reprisal and an opportunity to create healthier, more sustainable information systems for everyone. This next form also broadens who can act in a journalistic capacity – not just those who have graduated from journalism graduate programs, but anyone with a computer and a penchant for truth-seeking.
The civic information we all rely on should exist in a digital landscape that is open, safe and unencumbered by the interests and whims of billionaires and monopolistic platforms. The “digital infrastructure” that delivers our news shapes the quality of reporting, the public’s media literacy, and the health of our information system as a whole – and the existing structure is flimsy at best. Beyond journalists themselves, the digital future we’re moving toward will require contribution from all stakeholders – lawmakers, platforms, journalists, and information seekers – to create and participate in a healthier information system that benefits us all. To accomplish this, we will need to identify and lower barriers to current and emerging independent journalists while upholding high journalistic standards and protecting the public interest.
Ref, do something!
As the infrastructure needed for online enterprise and access to information, civic information should be treated like a public good rather than the cash cow of just a few companies. It is imperative that policymakers rein in Big Tech before they swallow up any hope of a free, thriving marketplace for information sources.
Any journalist will attest that online platforms like X or Bluesky are crucial for reaching an audience (and even for newsgathering). But a journalist’s content is at the mercy of just a handful of monopolistic platforms with a stranglehold on their access to revenue and readership. By controlling the digital ad market, picking and choosing what content wins the contest for visibility, and diverting viewers from original content with AI overviews and bot crawlers, Big Tech is obstructing information seekers’ access to high-quality sources.
Existing proposals aimed at addressing this would prevent anticompetitive practices like discrimination and self-preferencing, while also promoting interoperability – giving journalists the ability to migrate to more favorable platforms with their audiences if, say, they are suspended from a platform by a vengeful billionaire for doing their job. In this same vein, a federal data privacy and portability law, like California’s Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA),would codify users’ rights to data privacy and to easily move between platforms of their choosing. Other proposed legislation would target the shady and lopsided advertising market with an ad tech structural separation bill.
The platform giveth, and the platform taketh away
In conversations around the harms emerging from the digital landscape, there is a tendency to demonize the algorithms that organize and deliver content rather than focusing on the platforms that engineer them. Algorithms are a tool like any other and they can be designed and deployed without suppressing user speech or invading their digital privacy. Attempts to regulate content or algorithms, the channels for that content, by the government are not only often impractical but also threaten free speech. Barring very specific circumstances involving actual illegal content, content moderation should be left to platforms to figure out.
Rather than attempting to regulate the algorithms, platforms should integrate evidence-based design that puts the power to assess and avoid misinformation in the hands of information seekers. One popular approach has been crowdsourcing; X, formerly known as Twitter, was an early adopter of user-led fact-checking with a community notes feature that has so far proven to be an effective tool for ensuring information integrity online. A similar method was applied in a study where researchers developed and tested a platform which prompts creators to evaluate their content for accuracy before posting and allows users to share and view accuracy assessments on content, then filter their feeds accordingly. Decentralizing moderation in this way does not guarantee that high-quality news content will always come out on top, but it could empower users to sort through the slop – and it’s certainly a more constructive approach than regulation that threatens free speech and fails to directly address the harms to our information systems.
Social media platforms generate billions of dollars in ad revenue each year, yet creators see very little profit. Creators, especially journalists working in the public interest and providing superior content, should have pathways for compensation for their work. Many high-profile journalists have set up shop on the blogging platform Substack, which offers fellowships, cash prizes and a creator fund on top of their subscription structure. Monetization tools like these are promising, as long as they remain transparent. But while Substack is a current favorite for journalists and readers, it’s hardly perfect. The drawback here is one found with most platforms: once established on the app, it is difficult to move your data and audience elsewhere. Substack offers an in-app subscriber exporting function, but still limits creators’ migration by differentiating subscribers from mere followers, meaning a significant portion of their readership could be left behind. Clearly, there is still room for improvement with these emerging platforms, and policy that encourages interoperability and user data portability will be critical to online users’ continued access to their preferred news sources.
(News)paper beats rock
For all the challenges facing journalists because of AI, particularly the Sisyphean struggle to compete with generative AI and the ongoing conflict between news publishers and AI developers, there are also a number of ways it could help journalists to protect and profit from their work. Recently, Public Knowledge proposed a policy framework involving voluntary collective licensing, standardized signaling mechanisms, and public-interest safeguards that would strike a balance between fair use and sustainable business practices for publishers. Any negotiations over the use of journalistic works must involve smaller publishers and independent journalists, not just the biggest media companies with the most bargaining power.
Good journalism is grueling work; it’s slow and costly to produce, sees little return on investment and then has to compete with the slop filling our feeds. The same tools that have expanded access to online information can also drown out the most trustworthy sources. But emerging technologies can just as easily bolster news production. To name just one example, some of the largest newsrooms in the United States are already taking advantage of AI in things like data analysis, headline generation, transcribing and translation, or launching chatbots that answer reader questions. While these proprietary technologies are generally more available to large publications than to independent journalists and newsfluencers, smaller news creators are finding ways to make AI work for them.
For journalists with affordability and centralization concerns, open source AI could be a cheaper and (hopefully) more trustworthy alternative. Public Knowledge has championed open AI systems as a vital force for accessibility, innovation and transparency in AI development, but journalists are now finding applications for them, too. With access to the models, datasets and tools provided by developers, journalists can streamline their work and provide feedback to improve or specialize AI tools. While we have considerable reservations about President Trump’s AI Action Plan, it does include a push for embracing open source AI that shows promise. With the weight of the White House behind it, open source AI could soon be a more widely-available tool with the power to revolutionize the newsgathering and producing process.
Don’t eat the slop
The ugly truth of the matter is that online engagement is what ultimately drives algorithms, open protocol platforms, and money away from high-quality journalism. Social media users must take responsibility for their own information diet; just because slop is put in front of you, doesn’t mean you have to eat it. We need better education and training to increase digital literacy and awareness of the journalists creating worthwhile content. Initiatives are expanding concurrently with the rise of generative AI, with the White House assembling a task force aimed at fostering AI literacy and proficiency in education and media literacy mandates in K-12 education cropping up in several states. State action should be supported with federal funding and resources, which has been attempted before, but has yet to be enacted.
As bleak as things may currently seem, digital users are expressing frustration with the slop-ification of their feeds in a slew of viral video essays, think pieces and organized movements. While overall social media usage trends downward, news consumption continues to rise as a primary reason to log on. Clearly, there is still a healthy consumer appetite for high-quality information. And luckily, online users have a wealth of technological tools at their disposal with which to fact check, diversify news consumption, and seek out high-quality content. As long as there are independent journalists working diligently in the public interest, assisted by a digital infrastructure that works for them rather than against, there will always be an audience prepared to wade through a bog of 24k gold Labubus and Sora 2-generated fail compilations to reach them.
The crisis facing journalism does not have to spell disaster; it can mark a turning point in its transformation instead. To survive the collapsing of the norms and business models we’ve grown accustomed to, all stakeholders in our information systems will have to adapt. By breaking up the monopolistic hold of platforms on our information, empowering rising independent voices, and expanding agency and digital literacy for everyone online, we can equip information providers and seekers with the tools they need to navigate the online world and reimagine a digital infrastructure that is more equitable, transparent, and participatory. This is our opportunity to ensure a sustainable future for news – and our democracy. Let’s not blow it.
