A Free, Trustworthy & Empowered Press in the Digital Age

The week of July 4th seems like an appropriate time to reflect on the importance of a free, trustworthy, empowered press. Its importance is such that the guarantee of a free press is embodied in our constitution in the United States, as well as in other democracies around the world. In fact, in various countries, a free press is so central to democracy that it’s referred to as “the fourth estate,” or essentially an informal branch of the government with enormous social influence.

I grew up with a kind of reverence for the field of journalism. My parents subscribed to the San Jose News, then the afternoon paper of Silicon Valley. Once I started as a paper boy for the San Francisco Chronicle, my dad decided that he liked the morning edition, and instead of subscribing to this paper, made me pay for it as a form of rent. ?? I don’t know which he looked forward to more, their first cup of coffee or reading the paper. To this day, it’s hard for me to separate the smell of freshly brewed coffee from the smell of fresh newsprint. In our house, reading the paper was how we kept informed about the goings on in the world, where we explored different points of view, and where we got our entertainment. As you can see from the picture above, newsprint is still a part of my morning routine!

That’s one reason I ended up studying journalism in college, I suppose. After college, I served in the U.S. Marine Corps where I was trained as a public affairs officer -- another role that had gathering and sharing information, and telling stories with and through journalists at its core. Eventually, I would work in the private sector in communications roles where I would sometimes wonder whether I worked with journalists or for them ??. I still read the news every morning at my own breakfast table with my first cup of coffee, albeit through a mix of good old-fashioned newsprint and a mobile device. The Seattle Times is always first, followed by the New York Times, and finally the Wall Street Journal. Each has their own joys.

In one way or another, I’ve been a student of journalism and part of the media ecosystem throughout my entire education and career as a corporate communicator.

Through my work, I’ve been fortunate to know more than my fair share of great journalists over the years. Journalists aren’t just storytellers. They’re information-seekers, analysts and interpreters. At their best, they bring us stories that inspire, motivate, captivate, educate (and sometimes aggravate) us.

And today, the journalism world faces more challenges than perhaps ever before.

A recent poll by Columbia Journalism Review, done in partnership with Reuters, reveals there is a significant, and growing, trust gap between the public and the press. Confidence in the news media, especially compared to other American institutions, is at a record low.

Newsroom leaders claim that confidence is low in part because it’s harder than ever to invest sufficient resources in quality journalism due to radically declining revenue. Indeed, many point to their business models being upended by the very industry I’m part of – “big tech.”

Just last month, the House Judiciary Committee kicked off hearings to examine the impact of technology on the news business. Fox News framed it this way: “Lawmakers and journalism groups blast big tech for sending news industry into economic freefall.” Reporting on the same hearings, The New Yorker quoted Kevin Reilly, the editor of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, who bullishly stated, “Our audience has never been larger than it is now.” However, he also acknowledged many of those readers are viewing the content on other sites for free versus paying for a subscription, which poses a harsh reality long-term: “If others repackage our journalism and make money off it, yet none of that money makes its way back to the local paper, then it makes breaking that next story or exposing the next scandal more challenging. If that cycle continues indefinitely, quality local journalism will slowly wither, and eventually cease to exist.”

Shifts in business models are impacting the very nature of journalism jobs as well. Nick Thompson, the editor in chief of WIRED, cheekily summed up this evolution on LinkedIn:

At the same time as questions are being asked (rightfully) about the detrimental impacts of technology on the news business, technology is also enabling journalists to tell richer, more powerful stories than ever before.

The late David Carr, a former New York Times reporter once said, “…I look at my backpack that is sitting here, and it contains more journalistic firepower than the entire newsroom that I walked into 30 to 40 years ago. It's connected to the cloud, I can make digital recordings of everything that I do, I can check in real time if someone is telling me the truth, I have a still camera that takes video that I can upload quickly and seamlessly.”

Since then, the tools in a journalist’s kit have only become more plentiful and powerful.

This job posting at KGO in San Francisco makes plain some of the ways technology is aiding in the pursuit of better journalism…a search for a “data journalism fellow.”

Our mission at Microsoft is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. As part of that, we hope to do more to empower journalists – to continue doing their jobs independently, with more tools and resources at their disposal to tell more impactful stories, all the while running successful, sustainable businesses.

We’ve partnered with newsrooms around the world to help them visualize their stories using Power BI for data journalism, which should come in handy for KGO’s new hire. In January 2019, we announced Microsoft’s journalism grant program in collaboration with the International Center for Journalists to support reporting projects focused on data analysis and immersive storytelling. Through Microsoft News, in its pursuit of high-quality trustworthy journalism created by our publishing partners and curated into engage experiences, we doubled the Online News Association’s MJ Bear Fellowships for journalists under 30. Even more recently, we launched Microsoft’s new Office 365 for Journalists, which features on-demand training videos, tip sheets and more to help get the most out of Office 365 in daily work.

All of these steps are part of our larger effort to help newsrooms and journalists deliver impactful stories and empower them through technology to find, create, and share information in unprecedented ways.

Our goal is help journalists live our shared value: the pursuit of truth so that people and communities can make the best decisions to improve their daily lives.

We know we can’t solve the broader challenges facing journalism alone. But July 4th is a good time to reflect on the value of a free press, the sacrifices that have been made globally to ensure a free press, and how we can all step up in our own ways to ensure trusted journalism continues to thrive in a digital age.

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