How to sustain public service journalism

By Alessandro D’Arma and Maria Michalis, University of Westminster

Public Service Journalism (PSJ) – journalism in the public interest as a public service function – is undergoing profound changes and faces a range of formidable challenges. These transformations and challenges relate directly to the health and future of journalism as a vital aspect of the public sphere.

Today’s information landscape is increasingly fragile: news deserts – particularly at the local level – continue to expand, misinformation and disinformation are widespread, and much of what passes as ‘news’ lacks editorial accountability. While there is broad consensus on the need to strengthen PSJ, systemic challenges within today’s platform economy make this particularly difficult. Technological, economic, and political pressures have undermined the integrity of information systems around the world. Challenges that journalism faces in fulfilling its public service role include insufficient and uncertain funding, changing ownership structures, growing job precarity, threats to journalists’ safety, diminishing press freedom, and public dissatisfaction and declining trust in news institutions.

Read more: USAGM cuts imperil journalism, PMA warns

In a new collection of essays on this topic – edited by us together with Gregory Ferrell Lowe and Michael-Bernhard Zita – we move beyond viewing journalism merely as based on normative principles or a profession dedicated to crafting news stories. Instead, we argue for a conceptual shift: journalism should be understood primarily as an institution and a set of practices dedicated to serving the public interest. Journalism should provide information that is truthful, fair, informed, relevant, reasonably independent, and accountable.

While public service media (PSM) play a distinctive role in fostering journalism as a public service function, PSJ as a practice extends beyond PSM and Western liberal democracies. By understanding PSJ as a set of practices committed to servicing the public interest and the health of the public sphere, we acknowledge its diverse manifestations across different societies. This perspective recognises that a wide range of news organisations and individuals have a legitimate stake in PSJ.

Viewing journalism as a set of practices is particularly relevant today. Digital transformation, the rise of platform-driven media ecosystems, and the emergence of AI have blurred traditional boundaries between information, news, and entertainment. A variety of new actors – such as bloggers, influencers, and citizen journalists – now operate outside conventional journalistic structures, competing for public authority and attention. The definitions of ‘journalism’ and who qualifies as a ‘journalist’ are no longer clear-cut.

Solutions to complex problems such as news deserts, news avoidance, mis/ disinformation, and algorithmic biases require the engagement of a multitude of actors across levels of governance and the implementation of diverse strategies in practice.

Additionally, PSM face mounting political, economic, regulatory, and cultural pressures that limit their ability to fulfil a PSJ mission across different countries and regions. And yet, they remain a key institutional setting for the practice of PSM.

The chapters featured in the book cover a range of different national and regional contexts, from Finland, a stronghold of PSM, to Southern Africa, India and Greece, with much weaker PSM traditions. The chapters address both normative questions, particularly concerning the unique mission of PSM in promoting PSJ, and empirical ones, focusing on various aspects of platform power in relation to journalism and PSM.

Taken together, the book emphasises the distinctive role PSM can play in promoting journalism as a public service function while acknowledging the tensions and manyfold challenges that affect the practice of journalism within PSM organisations in different national and regional contexts.

The new collection, Challenges and Developments in Public Service Journalism, was edited by Alessandro D’Arma, Maria Michalis, Gregory Ferrell Lowe and Michael-Bernhard Zita and published by the University of Westminster Press as an open access e-book.

Featured image: Various press reporter hands with microphones and recorder in press interview. Credit: jesadaphorn / Shutterstock.com