New Models for Journalism: Changing Paradigms

Exploring the deep transformation that journalism has undergone in the last decade, this book provides students, professors and working journalists with the background on the demise of traditional media in the U.S. and the changes happening in the digital newsrooms.

Houston discusses today’s changes in journalism in the U.S., comparing and contrasting them with those around the world. Topics discussed include the decimation of the traditional newsrooms, contemporary corporate ownership and investors, the rise of bloggers and digital journalism, finding new audiences, the surge in nonprofit newsrooms and collaborations, investigative centers in the U.S. and globally, new model start-ups, and changing streams of revenue with the expansion of new technologies. The text also looks at the new relationship between journalism professionals and the academy, including the rise in content and stories supplied by university-based newsrooms. Houston, who has been on the frontline of these changes, also discusses the culture clashes and ethical dilemmas in cyber environments accompanied by new challenges to maintaining credibility and creating trust.

To fully explore the rapid-fire changes in news media and online journalism in recent years, this book will be of interest to students of journalism and communications, working journalists, and professors helping prepare budding journalists for their future careers in journalism.

Brant Houston is a Professor and the Knight Chair in Investigative Reporting at the University of Illinois, where he teaches journalism and oversees an online newsroom. An award-winning journalist, he was an investigative reporter at U.S. newspapers for seventeen years. For a more than a decade, he served as executive director of Investigative Reporters and Editors, a 5,000-member association headquartered at the University of Missouri School of Journalism, where he also taught investigative reporting. Houston has conducted more than 300 seminars for professional journalists and students in twenty-five countries, and he is a co-founder of networks of nonprofit newsrooms and educators throughout the world.