I teach journalism at NYU, critique the press, try to suggest reforms. PressThink is both my subject and my site. @jayrosen.bsky.social jayrosen_nyc at Threads
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Articles by Jay Rosen
Jay Rosen’s Internet Archive: an Introduction.
What do you mean by an “internet archive?” I am a media critic and journalism academic who has been publishing things on the internet since 1996. They are scattered about, but centered on my personal site: PressThink.org, which I own. What I mean by an “internet archive” is this: Everything of mine you can find online by clicking. That’s the goal anyway. Here’s where we are so far. The archive in its current form. When you say “everything you can find,” you don’t mean that literally, right? Right.
The Plan is to Have No Plan
The plan is to have no plan, to let daily deaths between one and three thousand become a normal thing, and then to create massive confusion about who is responsible - by telling the governors they're in charge without doing what only the federal government can do, by fighting with the press when it shows up to be briefed, by fixing blame for the virus on China or some other foreign element, and by "flooding the zone with shit, "Steve Bannon's phrase for overwhelming the system with...
What to know about Philly’s 2025 Thanksgiving Day Parade
PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — America’s original Thanksgiving Day Parade returns for its 106th edition Thursday, bringing music and entertainment to the Parkway and TVs across the region. Singers, dancers, marching bands and more will descend on Center City starting at 9 a.m., with the parade wrapping up with the arrival of Santa Claus and the beginning of the holiday shopping season.
I joined up with News Creator Corps by putting two and two together… Allow me to explain.
I recently concluded a 39-year career as a professor of journalism at NYU. Here I’m trying to explain my next job, and the logic behind it. The latest Gallup poll found that Americans’ confidence in the news media had “fallen to a new low,” with only 28% expressing a “great deal” or “fair amount” of trust in newspapers, television and radio. Put another way, 7 in 10 adults say they have “not very much” confidence (36%) or “none at all” (34%).
Episode 220-May the Podcast Be With You-IV A New Hope
Home » FCPA » Episode 220-May the Podcast Be With You-IV A New Hope
Episode 221-May The Podcast Be With You-V. The Empire Strikes Back
Home » FCPA » Episode 221-May The Podcast Be With You-V. The Empire Strikes Back
#28 || How To Tackle Trump's Lies
How do we cover the communications of a president who lies, especially when those lies can be fatal? The traditional rituals of journalism don't really work with a president who doesn't tell the truth, and so, what can we do instead? Reckonings presents Infinite Lunchbox on the topic of how to tackle Trump's lies — aka *post-truth jujitsu*.
Some personal news
As we say on the internet, “some personal news.” After 39 years on the job I am retiring as an NYU professor. In this post I will take a few moments to reflect on my academic career. Spoiler alert: I am not leaving the field, or the fight for a public service press. NYU has been my home for most of my academic life, starting in 1980, when I enrolled as a graduate student in NYU’s Media Ecology program in order to study with the great media critic, Neil Postman.
opinion Archives - TV News Check
Tom Wheeler and Al Sikes: "As former chairmen of the FCC — one appointed by a Democrat, the other by a Republican — we have seen firsthand …
36 Thoughts On The 2024 Campaign
In one respect, the final word on this election is easy. Each of Trump’s three campaigns has boiled down to a manichaean contest between good and evil, but this one has a real air of finality to it. Either he’ll be finished, or we’ll become a very different kind of country. At the same time, it defies easy summary.
The Nonstop, Dangerous Trump "Liestream" is Same as it Ever Was / a Book on Musk's Destruction of Twitter
Click the ♡ button if you appreciate what I’m trying to do here. Supposedly it helps drive visibility on Substack. In April 2020, New York University journalism professor and media critic told me this on Sustain What: I think we're facing the biggest propaganda moment in modern U.S. history from now until November... and I don't think the profession of journalism or the media system as a whole is in any way prepared for that.
The Political Economy Of Normalization Original
By the time you read this, Ronna Romney McDaniel’s shambolic tenure as a paid NBC News contributor may already be over. What will remain is a foundational question for NBC News and other, similar organizations that have dual-if-unwritten mandates to reflect the American political spectrum and simultaneously serve as bulwarks upholding the country’s foundational values: Which of these missions is, in the final analysis, most important?
Innovation in Compliance: Jay Rosen on Navigating Ethics and Compliance Challenges Through Self - Monitoring
Innovation comes in many forms, and compliance professionals need to not only be ready for it but also embrace it. Today, I visited with well-known compliance professional Jay Rosen to discuss how companies can improve their compliance programs through self-monitoring. Jay Rosen is a seasoned professional with a background in investment banking and a keen interest in ethics and compliance programs.
FCPA Compliance Report - Jay Rosen on SAP’s Road to FCPA Compliance
Welcome to the award-winning FCPA Compliance Report, the longest-running podcast in compliance. In this episode, Tom Fox welcomes Jay Rosen who discusses the recent FCPA enforcement action involving the software giant SAP. Jay Rosen is a seasoned compliance professional with a deep understanding of the SAP FCPA enforcement case.
Everything Compliance - Episode 111, Shout Outs and Rants
Welcome to the only roundtable podcast in compliance as we celebrate our second century of shows with our fan-fav Shout Outs and Rants section. 1. Matt Kelly shouts out to the State of Texas Legislature for creating a ‘Gold Card’ for physicians who have over 90% of all requested procedures covered by insurance. 2. Jonathan Marks rants about the Pentagon’s failure to shoot down a Chinese spy balloon. 3.
He used to edit political stories at the Chicago Tribune. Now he says the press is failing our democracy.
Skip to content In the autumn of 2021, I began noticing threads like this from Mark Jacob, a former editor at the Chicago Tribune and the Sun-Times. It’s not uncommon for journalists to become more critical of their occupation once they retire, but Jacob’s observations cut deeper than most. (“Yes, media should be fair – to the readers, to the facts. But not to the 2-party system.
Jay Rosen über die Frage, was konstruktiver Journalismus errichtet
Keynote speech to Bonn Institute by Jay Rosen, New York University Bonn, Germany, April 27, 2022 Ellen Heinrichs — and her partners in launching the Bonn Institute For Constructive Dialogue — have made a wise decision at the beginning of their adventure. They want to avoid arguing about the concept of “constructive journalism.” They want to avoid arguing about the fitness of that term or its proper definition.
Thread by @jayrosen_nyu on Thread Reader App
Ever wonder what journalists themselves think about patterns like bothsidezing, he said/she said, leaving it there, and an indifference to creeping fascism? I interviewed an experienced editor and journalist about all of those things, none of which he denies. THREAD. 1/ Let me introduce you to @MarkJacob16. He was a newspaper editor for his entire career. At the Chicago Tribune he was nation/world news editor, which meant he edited political stories most nights.
Andrew Tyndall comments on CBS News hiring Trump’s former chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, as a “news analyst” and paid contributor.
Andrew Tyndall comments on CBS News hiring Trump’s former chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, as a “news analyst” and paid contributor. March 30, 2022 Jay Rosen Uncategorized Andrew Tyndall monitors network news for a living. He is the publisher of the Tyndall Report, which tracks what the big three (CBS, NBC, ABC) are covering. He’s also a student of the news industry and the maneuvers of the networks as they compete with one another.
Answers to Craig's Questions
I have known Craig Newmark for a long time. He’s the Craig from craigslist.org. Now he’s best defined as a philanthropist. Craig supports a lot of journalism projects, including one named for him: The Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York (CUNY) to which he gave $20 million in 2018. Occasionally he sends me questions about the state of journalism.
The savvy turn in political journalism
For 15 years I have been writing about what I call the savvy style in the American press. This post is about the moment when a journalist goes there. Or refuses to. But first: what is the savvy style? This is from 2011: In the United States, most of the people who report on politics aren’t trying to advance an ideology. But I think they have an ideology, a belief system that holds their world together and tells them what to report about. It’s not left, or right, or center, really.
After six years of asking, NPR interviewed Trump. A journalist for Vice asked me how it went.
Questions by Todd Zwillich, Deputy Bureau Chief for VICE News in Washington and the former host of The Takeaway on public radio. Todd Zwillich: NPR did a production here, where they pre-ambled the interview with a straight litany of election facts, receipts and debunks they knew Trump was about to lie about. I thought it was really effective. What did it say to you? Jay Rosen: Certainly the way they did it showed a lot of thought.
The "here's where we're coming from" statement in journalism
Eleven years ago I published at my site, PressThink, an FAQ about The View from Nowhere. There I tried to explain what I meant in adapting that phrase to press criticism. This post is a companion to that one. But it starts from an opposite end. Not the view from nowhere but the voice of someone— disclosing a point of view. To explain what I mean by that, I will use the transparency section of tech journalist Casey Newton’s newsletter.
We assembled a small but mighty team of researchers, designers, developers, and subject matter experts. Learn more about who they are.
The Team We assembled a small but mighty team of researchers, product experts, and students to create this membership guide. Learn more about who they are and their involvement below.
Thread by @jayrosen_nyu on Thread Reader App
Last week @jonkarl of ABC News was asked this by @brianstelter: "Have you started to think about how you would approach the 2024 candidacy of Donald Trump?" Karl's replies got too little attention, in my view. This thread tries to correct for that. 1/ cnn.com/videos/busines… I would call Jon Karl a consensus figure within the US press. I don't mean a public consensus. I mean he's liked and respected by his peers.
A current list of my top problems in pressthink, May 2021
1. We have a two-party system and one of the two is anti-democratic. The Republican Party tried to overturn the results of a free and fair election. When that failed it did not purge the insurrectionists and begin to reform itself; rather, it continued the attack by other means, such as state laws making it harder to vote, or a continuation of the big lie that Trump actually won. By “anti-democratic” I mean willing to destroy key institutions to prevail in the contest for power.
Tim Lambert and Scott Blanchard of WITF.org explain why they decided to repeatedly connect local lawmakers to their election-fraud actions
WITF.org is the public broadcaster in the Harrisburg region of central Pennsylvania. On January 28 the newsroom explained a new policy toward those in public office who spread the election fraud lie and encouraged the January 6 insurrection. The journalists at WITF declared that they intended to contextualize future actions by these officals with reminders about their fateful moves in the period between the 2020 election and the inauguration of Joe Biden.
If you're worried that journalists have learned nothing from the Trump years.
What does a “bias toward democracy” mean to you? What sorts of things are involved in that? Beyond “three cheers for democracy!” and “democracy is great!” what does it require of you? A “bias towards democracy” for me means: 1.) acknowledging and documenting how American democracy is under attack and not pretending there is anything normal or unremarkable about our current predicament, and 2.) recognizing that journalists are not bystanders in all this.
Membership Puzzle Project is issuing its final call for research proposals — The Membership Puzzle Project
Membership Puzzle Project is a public research project that explores how news organizations can turn their strongest supporters into members who help sustain their journalism with their time, money, connections, ideas, and expertise.
NDM Bundeskonferenz 2020 | Neue deutsche Medienmacher*innen
Irgendwann in den vergangenen Monaten, irgendwo zwischen Halle und Hanau, zwischen Black Lives Matter und rechtsextremen Polizist:innen, hat der deutsche Journalismus gecheckt: Rassismus ist ein Thema, das alle angeht. Plötzlich gingen Dinge, die jahrelang nicht gingen: Schwarze Expert:innen statt der immer selben Gesichter in TV-Runden, Aufmacherinterviews über strukturelle Diskriminierung, weiße Selbstreflexion. Finden wir als Neue deutsche Medienmacher:innen erst einmal super.
Life Before the Pandemic
As the results of the 2020 election come fully into view, I am asking myself what will happen with the American press after Donald Trump leaves the White House. Most of the commentary on this question has centered on the media’s addiction to, and commercial dependence on the Trump phenomenon, as if the infamous quip from CBS Chairman Les Moonves — “It may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS” — might now run in reverse.
Two paths forward for the American press
As the results of the 2020 election come fully into view, I am asking myself what will happen with the American press after Donald Trump leaves the White House. Most of the commentary on this question has centered on the media’s addiction to, and commercial dependence on the Trump phenomenon, as if the infamous quip from CBS Chairman Les Moonves — “It may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS” — might now run in reverse.
PATHWAYS TO HEALING: Sleep and sweet dreams
Sleep is crucial for our overall health. Research show adults need anywhere between 6 to 9 hours of uninterrupted sleep a night, however more than 35% of adults report logging less than seven hours of sleep in a typical 24-hour period. Experts also estimate between 50 to 70 million American adults have a sleep disorder, with insomnia being the most common issue. Thirty percent of adults report short-term insomnia issues, while 10% struggle with chronic insomnia.
America’s Press and the Asymmetric War for Truth | Jay Rosen
“Journalism” is a name for the job of reporting on politics, questioning candidates and office-holders, and alerting Americans to what is actually happening in their public sphere. “The press” is the institution in which most journalism is done. The institution is what endures over time as people come into journalism and drift out of it.
The coming confrontation between the American press and the Republican Party
First published in a slightly different form as “America’s Press and the Asymmetric War for Truth” at the New York Review of Books site, Nov. 1, 2020 In my last post before the fateful election of 2020, I am going to project forward to a confrontation that I believe is coming for the people whose job is to report on politics, question candidates and office-holders, and alert Americans to what is actually happening in their public sphere. “Journalism” is a name for that job.
To protect democracy, journalists need to learn to think like hackers and spies
Illustration by Lulu Lin (for The Correspondent) As voters, as journalists, as citizens, and as writers, as participants alive in what was once considered a secure democracy, we are today living in the US through what Masha Gessen (following Bálint Magyar) calls an “autocratic attempt”.
Thread by @jayrosen_nyu on Thread Reader App
As part of my own look back at 2020, I want to share these thoughts about an essay I wrote twelve years ago, in which I got some things right and one thing — a big thing — disastrously wrong. If authors getting big stuff wrong interests you, then this thread might too. 1/ In January of 2009, I published at my site: "Audience Atomization Overcome: Why the Internet Weakens the Authority of the Press." archive.pressthink.org/2009/01/12/ato… It was one of my most successful posts.
Four radical ways the media can protect US democracy from Trump
Illustration by Lulu Lin (for The Correspondent) Even this far into his term, it is still a bit of a shock to be reminded that the single most potent force for misinforming the US public is the current president of the United States. For three years this has been a massive – and unsolved – problem for the country and its political leadership. But now it is life and death. On everything that involves the coronavirus, Donald Trump’s public statements have been unreliable.
Don’t let Trump be the protagonist of the pandemic (and four other ways the media can improve how it covers the coronavirus)
Illustration by Lulu Lin (for The Correspondent Our news system is designed for daily content production, not public understanding. In our current crisis we cannot afford that. Here are five ways of improving coronavirus coverage – though these methods can be used for covering any major structural development. (1) End duplication, work together, and publish at the same time This idea comes from my friend Dan Gillmor in his Medium post on 8 March.
In the 2020 US election, journalists need an agenda: defending democracy
Illustration by Lulu Lin (for The Correspondent) I am not sure how long I’m going to be doing this. By “this” I mean critiquing the US press as it reports on national politics, and trying to get journalists to adopt better practices when they are public actors who present to us as observers. It is a frustrating assignment, and I am wary of burnout. But since I am self-assigned – self-appointed, really – I have freedom of movement, intellectually speaking.
"You might not like it, but it's smart politics."
Recently someone asked me why, in facing up to the realities of the Trump presidency, the press has not broken with some of its more destructive habits (For what I mean by “destructive habits,” see James Fallows in The Atlantic). This post is my answer to that question. Well, one answer. It’s not a simple story. My description here is just part of what happened to leave the press unprepared for Trump.
Introducing the Membership Guide — The Membership Puzzle Project
This is a milestone day for Membership Puzzle Project. Because today MPP — in partnership with The Lenfest Institute and the Google News Initiative — released the Membership Guide. It is the culmination of three years of study and support for membership models in news. With only a bit of hyperbole, we might say it’s everything we know. The Guide is like a little course in membership. It takes you through the steps. It tells you how to do each one. It identifies best practices.
Notes on Membership
1. Subsidy systems Public service journalism has always been subsidized by something. But the system of subsidy varies across cultural eras and national boundaries. New subsidy systems can arise. Reliable ones can fail. We are living through such a shift today. These notes on membership have a premise: Every system for subsidizing the production of real news has strengths and weaknesses. There is no perfect or stable answer. We have to be smart about the risks and advantages of each.
What newsrooms can learn from threat modeling at Facebook
Editor’s note: We’re barreling toward the 2020 election with big unresolved problems in election interference — from foreign actors to domestic troublemakers. So how can journalists sort through all of the noise without having their coverage or their newsrooms compromised?
The big national news providers need threat modeling teams
As voters, as journalists, as citizens, and as writers, as participants alive in what was once considered a secure democracy, we are today living through what Masha Gessen (following Bálint Magyar) calls an “autocratic attempt.” Let those words sink in for a moment: an autocratic attempt…”the build up to actually wielding autocratic power.” When a political figure who has gained power tries to use that power to probe the possibilities for establishing an autocratic state, that’s an autocratic...
Getting Started with Membership
The Handbook Journalism is facing both a trust crisis and a sustainability crisis. Membership answers to both. It is a social contract between a news organization and its members in which members give their time, money, energy, expertise, and connections to support a cause that they believe in. In exchange, the news organization offers transparency and opportunities to meaningfully contribute to both the sustainability and impact of the organization.
Membership Handbook
The Handbook Journalism is facing both a trust crisis and a sustainability crisis. Membership answers to both. It is a social contract between a news organization and its members in which members give their time, money, energy, expertise, and connections to support a cause that they believe in. In exchange, the news organization offers transparency and opportunities to meaningfully contribute to both the sustainability and impact of the organization.
How is membership different from subscription?
The Handbook Journalism is facing both a trust crisis and a sustainability crisis. Membership answers to both. It is a social contract between a news organization and its members in which members give their time, money, energy, expertise, and connections to support a cause that they believe in. In exchange, the news organization offers transparency and opportunities to meaningfully contribute to both the sustainability and impact of the organization.
BOOKS OF THE TIMES; When Is a Car a Truck? If Uncle Sam Says So
BOOKS OF THE TIMES Nov. 26, 2002 See the article in its original context from November 26, 2002, Section E, Page 9Buy Reprints TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. HIGH AND MIGHTY S.U.V.'s: The World's Most Dangerous Vehicles and How They Got That Way By Keith Bradsher Illustrated. 468 pages. Public Affairs. $28. This is one of the best books on American politics I have read recently, although it's supposed to be about cars.
From emergency to active threat: We have again switched settings in our coverage of Donald Trump
On March 19 of this year we alerted readers to a shift in our coverage of Donald Trump’s presidency. We said then that we were moving to an “emergency” setting, which had these consequences for how we would treat Trump as a figure in the news. To prevent him from misinforming you about matters of life and death — the coronavirus — we will no longer carry his news conferences live. From all normal press relations with the Trump White House our reporters will withdraw.
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