I sup­pose the title reveals my con­cerns, which are more about the former than the lat­ter. We’ll be talk­ing about it in Per­u­gia this week at the Inter­na­tional Journ­al­ism Fest­ival.

Here’s a read­ing list:

Journ­al­ism was long ago seen as a fourth estate, an extra-parliamentary rep­res­ent­at­ive cohort.

In 19C polit­ical the­ory, the press is seen as a neces­sary ele­ment in a rep­res­ent­at­ive democracy.

In the ancient world, though there might be, and often was, great indi­vidual or local inde­pend­ence, there could be noth­ing like a reg­u­lated pop­u­lar gov­ern­ment bey­ond the bounds of a single city-community; because there did not exist the phys­ical con­di­tions for the form­a­tion and propaga­tion of a pub­lic opin­ion, except among those who could be brought together to dis­cuss pub­lic mat­ters in the same agora. This obstacle is gen­er­ally thought to have ceased by the adop­tion of the rep­res­ent­at­ive sys­tem. But to sur­mount it com­pletely, required the press, and even the news­pa­per press, the real equi­val­ent, though not in all respects an adequate one, of the Pnyx and the Forum. (John Stu­art Mill, Con­sid­er­a­tions on Rep­res­ent­at­ive Gov­ern­ment, 1861)

The press is no good in the role hav­ing been cap­tured by cor­por­ate interests, UK edi­tion (Julian Pet­ley, Fourth Rate Estate).

The press could never ful­fill the role since cit­izens can never play the role deman­ded of them by demo­cractic the­ory (Jorn Hen­rik Petersen, Lippmann Revis­ited, 2003).

The “informed cit­izen” (i.e. the con­sumer of journ­al­ism) is not a require­ment of demo­cracy (Michael Schud­son America’s Ignor­ant Voters, 2000)

The decline in the journ­al­ism industry is not a crisis for demo­cracy.

Journalism’s role is import­ant and worthy of pub­lic fund­ing.

Please add any inter­est­ing links in the comments.