Traditional journalism and reporting have long played a role in the American democratic system. In recent years, however, the industry has rapidly evolved alongside society.
David Ryfe, director of the School of Journalism and Media at The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin), has studied the changing journalism industry and its role in America for more than 20 years. He has written two books on the subject: “Can Journalism Survive?” and “Journalism and the Public.” Through his published work and his recent seminar at UT’s Lunchtime Lecture series, Ryfe shared his insights about journalism’s history, the current issues surrounding the industry, and how it may evolve in future years.
Ryfe defined the role of a journalist as a storyteller who informs the public. However, as the industry is changing, these roles should expand to connecting with the public in new ways to keep up with society and the rise of social media, according to Ryfe.
“We’re moving into a new era of citizenship, and [journalists] are delivering expertise in a different way,” Ryfe said. “It may mean community organizing or not writing news stories. It may mean they are going to be like Socrates and hang out at the local coffee shop and answer people’s questions.”
According to Ryfe, the journalism most Americans are familiar with did not emerge until the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Prior to this, journalism was not a professional industry; prominent community members served as editors of newspapers they founded, and advertising was not their financial focus. Increased ad sales enabled publications to succeed with a wider distribution. Ryfe attributes this success to a virtuous cycle that results from the connection between news and advertisement.
“The more advertising contracts the news organizations had, the more news they needed to put in the white space around the advertisers,” Ryfe said. “They needed more news, which meant they needed more journalists.”
According to Ryfe, at the turn of the 21st century, the virtuous cycle turned into a vicious cycle as American families moved to the suburbs and more women entered the workforce. This forced journalism’s business model to adapt because newspaper distribution decreased.
“People began to move to the suburbs and then they drove into work,” Ryfe said. “ You couldn’t read a newspaper while you were driving. Newspapers really weren’t compatible with the life experiences of more and more people, so they began to lose market share over time.”
With the beginning of the digital age of American society, the accompanying widespread reliance on the internet also contributed to the decline of the journalism industry. According to Ryfe, as specialized sources emerged, Americans were less dependent on newspapers.
“What you once got in the newspaper in terms of crossword puzzles, sports sections, lifestyle sections, and cooking recipes, was disaggregated online,” Ryfe said. “Particular websites devoted themselves to each one of those things, and so newspapers were left in the wake of this transformation.”
Ryfe, from a research perspective, maintains his faith in the journalism industry despite Pew Research Center estimating that 53% of U.S. adults at least sometimes get their news from social media. The news that they are following on the internet, Instagram Reels or other forms of social media, still largely originates from reporting by a journalist.
“There’s so much of the internet’s news production that feeds off the original reporting that journalists do,” Ryfe said. “News influencers who are on Instagram will give you 90 seconds of the most important news stories of the day. They only know that because some journalist has gone out and done some reporting.”
The well-researched and factual reporting that American journalists practice is necessary to democracy, according to Ryfe. Still, he explains that a new era of journalism must expand to meet citizens’ where they consume the bulk of their information as an increasingly small number of social media platforms dominate the public eye.