Journalism faces a pivotal moment. In 2026, a crucial question for everyone is whether journalism can survive its decline and sense of lost authority.
For much of modern American history, journalism has been a key institution in society for providing truth. It confirmed facts, challenged those in power, and created a shared understanding of reality. Its authority was never flawless, but it was widely acknowledged and trusted.
As the new year begins, that authority is weathered and battered by internal forces within its own institutions.
Algorithms, not editors, are increasingly determining what people see. Engagement metrics favor outrage over accuracy. Artificial intelligence can produce content faster than humans can verify it. And political figures openly criticize journalism not just for errors but for the very act of investigation.
This isn’t just a crisis for journalism; it’s a crisis of how society defines what is real.
One of the difficult truths to accept is that journalism didn’t lose its authority overnight. Some of it was voluntarily surrendered.
That’s what this column focuses on. Our industry.
The national journalism industry has lost hundreds, if not thousands, of talented journalists due to shareholder pressure and a focus on short-term financial gains. Think about that for a moment. In many cases, companies lay off many of the people who helped create the value that those stocks are built on.
Some media executives knelt instead of standing, sacrificing journalistic principles by offering cash settlements to President Donald Trump rather than defending their reporting against dubious legal claims. These settlements cast a long shadow over newsroom independence and raise troubling questions about how much courage media companies will allow journalists to exercise in the public interest.
In newsrooms, we also made choices. We prioritized speed over verification. We confused access with independence. We standardized news judgment to achieve scale, leading to a dull, generic approach to stories that needed depth and originality. We relied on technology to replace deeply human qualities—curiosity, discernment, and courage—only to realize that machines cannot replicate human judgment or emotional intelligence.
Cable news has long abandoned objectivity, instead aligning with partisan loyalty. This loyalty has become propaganda driven by outrage, grievances, and endless talking points. Much of traditional cable news now focuses less on delivering facts and more on provoking emotional reactions.
Social media platforms are now the primary sources for news and information, but they often lack depth. They favor brief messages over context, emotion over evidence, and repetition over originality. Algorithms restrict what people see rather than broaden their perspectives, showing users what they already believe rather than what they need to learn. According to a Pew Research Center study, social media users, on average, know less than traditional news consumers.
Local TV and digital news outlets frequently mimic each other, sharing the same material from wire services, press releases, video feeds, and trending topics. This uniformity in news coverage has become counterproductive. It trains viewers to see news as interchangeable, commodified, and disposable.
At the same time, local media leaders and consultants promise a return to respect by “Going where the audience is.” The advice is technically correct but incomplete. What’s missing, and much harder, is figuring out how to engage audiences, especially those who have never developed traditional news habits.
Gen Z, Gen Alpha, and soon Gen Beta have no memory of morning newspapers, evening newscasts, or weekly news magazines. You can’t send audiences “back” to something they never experienced. And simply repackaging old ideas onto new platforms isn’t true innovation.
Another challenge facing local journalism in 2026 is the content itself. Too often, “live, local, breaking news” still means crime scenes, car crashes, fires, and reporters standing in front of dark buildings. These familiar formulas may be simple, but they are not enough.
Media leaders often acknowledge that local content must evolve to remain relevant, but they tend to fall back on their old habits.
Why is change so hard within a newsroom?
Let’s begin with people. It’s shortsighted to believe that having fewer people will lead to high-quality journalism and public service.
On the broadcast side of news, there’s overproduction. Fourteen hours of local daily news doesn’t necessarily mean quality. News is easily repackaged, which makes it cheaper than syndication or original programming. The internal studio production cost of creating more news is the easy part.
One issue is “newsgathering.” To expand news coverage and improve quality, more staff is needed. More newscasts mean tight deadlines, which limit the time for gathering news. For example, a typical 8-hour day for a reporter includes researching a story, setting up interviews and capturing B-roll footage, interviewing key individuals, writing and editing the story, and getting pre-broadcast script approval. That’s a full day.
Just a few decades ago, a television reporter’s deadline was around 5 or 6 pm. However, the addition of newscasts pushes deadlines much earlier and reduces the time available for newsgathering. That race to meet deadlines means the best reporters will only scratch the surface of important issues. Quality journalism requires time and people. The nonstop feed-the-beast mentality is incompatible with delivering good journalism.
Many of these issues are similar for both print and digital journalists. People considered the golden age of local newspapers. Newsrooms were staffed with reporters embedded in communities—journalists who knew city hall, school boards, courts, police departments, neighborhoods, and power structures. They served as watchdogs because they were present, informed, and persistent.
Newspaper editorial boards offered insightful analysis and opinions. These boards played a crucial role in shaping agendas aimed at enhancing the lives of individuals, families, and communities.
Having fewer people leads to less coverage. It also falls short in providing the quality and variety of coverage news consumers need to understand their community.
Okay, one last issue: groupthink. News gatekeepers are remarkably conditioned to identify and value content using the same thought process: what is and isn’t worthy of coverage? In psychology, these are called schemas — frameworks that shape how information is interpreted. Content outside those schemas is easily dismissed. Over time, these habits become perceptual blinders, which explains why news organizations so often follow the herd.
Technology is often seen as the fix for journalism’s issues. New tools, platforms, and formats are viewed as shiny distractions. However, relying on technology alone to regain relevance overlooks the real challenge: building sustained, layered public interest in news.
Artificial intelligence is already a powerful but imperfect tool. Journalists should not ignore it. However, A.I. cannot replace face-to-face human interaction, trust-building, or accountability. Journalism has always revolved around relationships.
In 2026, media ownership must confront a fundamental question: Can journalism survive without a dramatic investment in more journalists?
That’s a move that puts journalism first.