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Ethics Ethics Case Studies

The SPJ Code of Ethics is voluntarily embraced by thousands of journalists, regardless of place or platform, and is widely used in newsrooms and classrooms as a guide for ethical behavior. The code is intended not as a set of "rules" but as a resource for ethical decision-making. It is not — nor can it be under the First Amendment — legally enforceable. For an expanded explanation, please follow this link .

For journalism instructors and others interested in presenting ethical dilemmas for debate and discussion, SPJ has a useful resource. We've been collecting a number of case studies for use in workshops. The Ethics AdviceLine operated by the Chicago Headline Club and Loyola University also has provided a number of examples. There seems to be no shortage of ethical issues in journalism these days. Please feel free to use these examples in your classes, speeches, columns, workshops or other modes of communication.

Kobe Bryant’s Past: A Tweet Too Soon? On January 26, 2020, Kobe Bryant died at the age of 41 in a helicopter crash in the Los Angeles area. While the majority of social media praised Bryant after his death, within a few hours after the story broke, Felicia Sonmez, a reporter for The Washington Post , tweeted a link to an article from 2003 about the allegations of sexual assault against Bryant. The question: Is there a limit to truth-telling? How long (if at all) should a journalist wait after a person’s death before resurfacing sensitive information about their past?

A controversial apology After photographs of a speech and protests at Northwestern University appeared on the university's newspaper's website, some of the participants contacted the newspaper to complain. It became a “firestorm,” — first from students who felt victimized, and then, after the newspaper apologized, from journalists and others who accused the newspaper of apologizing for simply doing its job. The question: Is an apology the appropriate response? Is there something else the student journalists should have done?

Using the ‘Holocaust’ Metaphor People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or PETA, is a nonprofit animal rights organization known for its controversial approach to communications and public relations. In 2003, PETA launched a new campaign, named “Holocaust on Your Plate,” that compares the slaughter of animals for human use to the murder of 6 million Jews in WWII. The question: Is “Holocaust on Your Plate” ethically wrong or a truthful comparison?

Aaargh! Pirates! (and the Press) As collections of songs, studio recordings from an upcoming album or merely unreleased demos, are leaked online, these outlets cover the leak with a breaking story or a blog post. But they don’t stop there. Rolling Stone and Billboard often also will include a link within the story to listen to the songs that were leaked. The question: If Billboard and Rolling Stone are essentially pointing readers in the right direction, to the leaked music, are they not aiding in helping the Internet community find the material and consume it?

Reigning on the Parade Frank Whelan, a features writer who also wrote a history column for the Allentown, Pennsylvania, Morning Call , took part in a gay rights parade in June 2006 and stirred up a classic ethical dilemma. The situation raises any number of questions about what is and isn’t a conflict of interest. The question: What should the “consequences” be for Frank Whelan?

Controversy over a Concert Three former members of the Eagles rock band came to Denver during the 2004 election campaign to raise money for a U.S. Senate candidate, Democrat Ken Salazar. John Temple, editor and publisher of the Rocky Mountain News, advised his reporters not to go to the fundraising concerts. The question: Is it fair to ask newspaper staffers — or employees at other news media, for that matter — not to attend events that may have a political purpose? Are the rules different for different jobs at the news outlet?

Deep Throat, and His Motive The Watergate story is considered perhaps American journalism’s defining accomplishment. Two intrepid young reporters for The Washington Post , carefully verifying and expanding upon information given to them by sources they went to great lengths to protect, revealed brutally damaging information about one of the most powerful figures on Earth, the American president. The question: Is protecting a source more important than revealing all the relevant information about a news story?

When Sources Won’t Talk The SPJ Code of Ethics offers guidance on at least three aspects of this dilemma. “Test the accuracy of information from all sources and exercise care to avoid inadvertent error.” One source was not sufficient in revealing this information. The question: How could the editors maintain credibility and remain fair to both sides yet find solid sources for a news tip with inflammatory allegations?

A Suspect “Confession” John Mark Karr, 41, was arrested in mid-August in Bangkok, Thailand, at the request of Colorado and U.S. officials. During questioning, he confessed to the murder of JonBenet Ramsey. Karr was arrested after Michael Tracey, a journalism professor at the University of Colorado, alerted authorities to information he had drawn from e-mails Karr had sent him over the past four years. The question: Do you break a confidence with your source if you think it can solve a murder — or protect children half a world away?

Who’s the “Predator”? “To Catch a Predator,” the ratings-grabbing series on NBC’s Dateline, appeared to catch on with the public. But it also raised serious ethical questions for journalists. The question: If your newspaper or television station were approached by Perverted Justice to participate in a “sting” designed to identify real and potential perverts, should you go along, or say, “No thanks”? Was NBC reporting the news or creating it?

The Media’s Foul Ball The Chicago Cubs in 2003 were five outs from advancing to the World Series for the first time since 1945 when a 26-year-old fan tried to grab a foul ball, preventing outfielder Moises Alou from catching it. The hapless fan's identity was unknown. But he became recognizable through televised replays as the young baby-faced man in glasses, a Cubs baseball cap and earphones who bobbled the ball and was blamed for costing the Cubs a trip to the World Series. The question: Given the potential danger to the man, should he be identified by the media?

Publishing Drunk Drivers’ Photos When readers of The Anderson News picked up the Dec. 31, 1997, issue of the newspaper, stripped across the top of the front page was a New Year’s greeting and a warning. “HAVE A HAPPY NEW YEAR,” the banner read. “But please don’t drink and drive and risk having your picture published.” Readers were referred to the editorial page where White explained that starting in January 1998 the newspaper would publish photographs of all persons convicted of drunken driving in Anderson County. The question: Is this an appropriate policy for a newspaper?

Naming Victims of Sex Crimes On January 8, 2007, 13-year-old Ben Ownby disappeared while walking home from school in Beaufort, Missouri. A tip from a school friend led police on a frantic four-day search that ended unusually happily: the police discovered not only Ben, but another boy as well—15-year-old Shawn Hornbeck, who, four years earlier, had disappeared while riding his bike at the age of 11. Media scrutiny on Shawn’s years of captivity became intense. The question: Question: Should children who are thought to be the victims of sexual abuse ever be named in the media? What should be done about the continued use of names of kidnap victims who are later found to be sexual assault victims? Should use of their names be discontinued at that point?

A Self-Serving Leak San Francisco Chronicle reporters Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams were widely praised for their stories about sports figures involved with steroids. They turned their investigation into a very successful book, Game of Shadows . And they won the admiration of fellow journalists because they were willing to go to prison to protect the source who had leaked testimony to them from the grand jury investigating the BALCO sports-and-steroids. Their source, however, was not quite so noble. The question: Should the two reporters have continued to protect this key source even after he admitted to lying? Should they have promised confidentiality in the first place?

The Times and Jayson Blair Jayson Blair advanced quickly during his tenure at The New York Times , where he was hired as a full-time staff writer after his internship there and others at The Boston Globe and The Washington Post . Even accusations of inaccuracy and a series of corrections to his reports on Washington, D.C.-area sniper attacks did not stop Blair from moving on to national coverage of the war in Iraq. But when suspicions arose over his reports on military families, an internal review found that he was fabricating material and communicating with editors from his Brooklyn apartment — or within the Times building — rather than from outside New York. The question: How does the Times investigate problems and correct policies that allowed the Blair scandal to happen?

Cooperating with the Government It began on Jan. 18, 2005, and ended two weeks later after the longest prison standoff in recent U.S. history. The question: Should your media outlet go along with the state’s request not to release the information?

Offensive Images Caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad didn’t cause much of a stir when they were first published in September 2005. But when they were republished in early 2006, after Muslim leaders called attention to the 12 images, it set off rioting throughout the Islamic world. Embassies were burned; people were killed. After the rioting and killing started, it was difficult to ignore the cartoons. Question: Do we publish the cartoons or not?

The Sting Perverted-Justice.com is a Web site that can be very convenient for a reporter looking for a good story. But the tactic raises some ethical questions. The Web site scans Internet chat rooms looking for men who can be lured into sexually explicit conversations with invented underage correspondents. Perverted-Justice posts the men’s pictures on its Web site. Is it ethically defensible to employ such a sting tactic? Should you buy into the agenda of an advocacy group — even if it’s an agenda as worthy as this one?

A Media-Savvy Killer Since his first murder in 1974, the “BTK” killer — his own acronym, for “bind, torture, kill” — has sent the Wichita Eagle four letters and one poem. How should a newspaper, or other media outlet, handle communications from someone who says he’s guilty of multiple sensational crimes? And how much should it cooperate with law enforcement authorities?

A Congressman’s Past The (Portland) Oregonian learned that a Democratic member of the U.S. Congress, up for re-election to his fourth term, had been accused by an ex-girlfriend of a sexual assault some 28 years previously. But criminal charges never were filed, and neither the congressman, David Wu, nor his accuser wanted to discuss the case now, only weeks before the 2004 election. Question: Should The Oregonian publish this story?

Using this Process to Craft a Policy It used to be that a reporter would absolutely NEVER let a source check out a story before it appeared. But there has been growing acceptance of the idea that it’s more important to be accurate than to be independent. Do we let sources see what we’re planning to write? And if we do, when?

SPJ News –  SPJ urges swift action by Senate panel on federal shield law to protect journalists –  SPJ calls for action by journalists against gag rules after key legal win –  SPJ Foundation awards over $45,000 in grants to seven initiatives and journalism programs

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• “Ad”mission of guilt
• “Do I stop him?”
• Newspaper joins war against drugs
• Have I got a deal for you!
• Identifying what’s right
• Is “Enough!” too much?
• Issues of bench and bar
• Knowing when to say “when!”
• Stop! This is a warning…
• Strange bedfellows
• Gambling with being first
• Making the right ethical choice can mean winning by losing
• Playing into a hoaxster’s hands
• “They said it first”
• Is it news, ad or informercial?
• Letter to the editor
• Games publishers play
• An offer you can refuse
• An oily gift horse
• Public service . . . or “news-mercials”
• As life passes by
• Bringing death close
• A careless step, a rash of calls
• Distortion of reality?
• Of life and death
• Naked came the rider
• “A photo that had to be used”
• A picture of controversy
• Freedom of political expression
• Brother, can you spare some time?
• Columnist’s crusade OK with Seattle
• Kiss and tell
• The making of a govenor
• Past but not over
• Of publishers and politics
• To tell the truth
• Truth & Consequences
• “Truth boxes”
• When journalists become flacks
• A book for all journalists who believe
• The Billboard Bandit
• Food for thought
• Grand jury probe
• Judgement on journalists
• Lessons from an ancient spirit
• Lying for the story . . .
• Newspaper nabs Atlanta’s Dahmer
• One way to a good end
• Over the fence
• “Psst! Pass it on!”
• Rules aren’t neat on Crack Street
• “Someone had to be her advocate”
• Trial by Fire
• Trial by proximity
• Using deceit to get the truth
• When advocacy is okay
• Witness to an execution
• Are we our brother’s keeper? . . . You bet we are!
• Betraying a trust
• Broken promise
• “But I thought you were . . . ”
• “Can I take it back?”
• Competitive disadvantage
• Getting it on tape
• The great quote question
• How to handle suicide threats
• Let’s make a deal!
• A phone-y issue?
• The source wanted out
• The story that died in a lie
• Thou shalt not break thy promise
• Thou shalt not concoct thy quote
• Thou shalt not trick thy source
• Too good to be true
• Vulnerable sources and journalistic responsibility
• The way things used to be . . .
• When a story just isn’t worth it
• When a story source threatens suicide
• When public should remain private
• The ethics of “outing”
• “For personal reasons”
• Intruding on grief
• Intruding on private pain
• Privacy case settled against TV station
• Seeing both sides
• Two views on “outing”
• Unwanted spotlight
• Whose right is it anyway?
• Other views on the Christine Busalacchi case
• The death of a soldier
• Firing at Round Rock
• A kinder, gentler news media
• Operation: Buy yourself a parade
• Rallying ’round the flag
• “Salute to military” ads canceled
• Tell the truth, stay alive
• The windbags of war
• Absent with no malice
• Anonymity for rape victims . . .
• An exception to the rule
• The boy with a broken heart
• Civilly suitable
• Creating a victim
• “Everyone already knew”
• An exceptional case
• Innocent victims
• Minor infraction
• Names make news
• Naming a victim
• Naming “johns”
• Profile of controversy
• What the media all missed
• Punishing plagiarizers
• Sounding an alarm on AIDS
• Suffer the children
• Anchor’s away
• The day the earth stood still
• Doing your own ethics audit
• Good guys, bad guys and TV news
• Is it just me, or . . . ?
• The Post’s exam answer story
• TV station “teases” suicide
• Yanking Doonesbury
• The year in review
• Colorado media’s option play
• Deadly lesson
• Deciding which critically ill person gets coverage
• When journalists play God . . .
• A delicate balance
• The Fallen Servant
• Handle with care
• It’s the principle, really
• Killing news
• Maybe what seems so right is wrong
• On the line
• Protest and apology after Daily Beacon story
• Red flag for badgering
• Sharing the community’s grief
• The “super-crip” stereotype
• “And then he said *&%*!!!”
• When big is not better
• When the KKK comes calling
• Not the straight story
• Agreeing to disagree
• All in the family
• Family feud
• Author! Author!
• The Bee that roared
• Brewing controversy
• Building barriers
• Other views from librarians
• The ethics of information selling
• Close to home
• Family ties
• How now, sacred cow?
• The ties that bind
• “Like any other story”
• When your newspaper is the news
• Not friendly fire
• Overdraft on credibility?
• The problem is the writing
• Written rules can be hazardous
• Project censored, sins of omission and the hardest “W” of all – “why”
• Risking the newsroom’s image
• The Media School

Ethics Case Studies

Ethics cases online.

This set of cases has been created for teachers, researchers, professional journalists and consumers of news to help them explore ethical issues in journalism. The cases raise a variety of ethical problems faced by journalists, including such issues as privacy, conflict of interest, reporter- source relationships, and the role of journalists in their communities.

The initial core of this database comes from a series of cases developed by Barry Bingham, Jr., and published in his newsletter, FineLine. The school is grateful to Bingham for his permission to make these cases available to a wider audience.

You may download cases for classes, research or personal use. Permission is granted for academic use of these cases, including inclusion in course readers for specific college courses. This permission does not extend to the republication of the cases in books, journals or electronic form.

Note: We are indebted to Professor Emeritus David Boeyink, who developed this project several years ago.

Aiding law enforcement

• “Ad”mission of guilt: Court-ordered ads raise ethical questions
• “Do I stop him?”: Reporter’s arresting question is news
• Fairness: A casualty of the anti-drug crusade
• Newspaper joins war against drugs: Standard-Times publishes photos of all suspected drug offenders
• Have I got a deal for you!: The line between cooperation and collusion
• Identifying what’s right: Photographer’s ID used in hostage release
• Is “Enough!” too much?: Editors split on anti-drug coupons
• Issues of bench and bar: In this case, a TV reporter is the judge
• Knowing when to say “when!”: Drawing the line at cooperating with authorities
• Stop! This is a warning . . . : Suppressing news at police request
• Strange Bedfellows: Federal agents in a TV newsroom

Being first

• Gambling with being first: The media drive to score on the Isiah Thomas story
• Playing into a hoaxster’s hands: How the Virginia media got suckered
• “They said it first”: Is that reason for going for the story?

Bottom-line decisions

• Is it news, ad or infomercial?: The line between news and advertising is going, going . . .
• Games publishers play: Allowing an advertiser to call the shots
• An offer you can refuse: The selling of Cybill to the Enquirer
• An oily gift horse: saying “No!” to Exxon
• Public service. . .or “news-mercials”: The blending of television news and advertising

Controversial photos

• As life passes by: A journalist’s role: watch and wait
• Bringing death close: Publishing photographs of human tragedy
• A careless step, a rash of calls: “Unusual” photo of AIDS walkathon raises hackles” 
• Distortion of reality?: “Punk for Peace” photograph draws fire
• Of life and death: Photos capture woman’s last moments
• “A photo that had to be used”: Anatomy of a newspaper’s decision
• A picture of controversy: Pulitzer photos show diverse editorial standards

Covering politics

• Freedom of political expression: Do journalists forfeit their right?
• Brother, can you spare some time?: TV stations give candidates air time
• Columnist’s crusade OK with Seattle Times
• Kiss and tell: Publishing details of a mayor’s personal life
• The making of a governor: How media fantasy swayed an election
• Past but not over: When history collides with the Present
• Of publishers and politics: Byline protest threatened at Star Tribune
• To tell the truth: Why I didn’t; why I regret it
• Truth & Consequences: The public’s right to know . . . at what cost?
• “Truth boxes”: Media monitoring of TV campaign ads
• When journalists become flacks: Two views on what to do and when to do it

Getting the story

• A book for all journalists who believe: Accuracy is our highest ethical debate
• The Billboard Bandit: Did the newspaper get graffiti on its reputation
• Food for thought: You are what you eat . . . and do
• Grand jury probe: TV journalists indicted for illegal dogfight
• Judgment on journalists: Do they defiantly put themselves “above the law?”
• Lessons from an ancient spirit: Why I participated in a peyote ritual
• Lying for the story . . . :Or things they don’t teach in journalism school
• Newspaper nabs Atlanta’s Dahmer: Another predator who should’ve been stopped: Was it homophobia?
• One way to a good end: Reporter cuts corners to test capital drug program
• Over the fence: A case of crossing the line for a story
• “Psst! Pass it on!”: Why are journalists spreading rumors?
• Rules aren’t neat on Crack Street: Journalists know the rules; they also know that the rules don’t always apply when confronted with life-threatening situations
• “Someone had to be her advocate”: A newspaper’s crusade to keep a child’s death from being forgotten
• Trial by Fire: Boy “hero” story tests media
• Trial by proximity: How close is too close for a jury and a reporter?
• Using deceit to get the truth: When there’s just no other way
• When advocacy is okay: Access is an acceptable journalist’s cause
• White lies: Bending the truth to expose injustice
• Witness to an execution: KQED sues to videotape capital punishment

Handling sources

• Are we our brother’s keeper? . . . You bet we are!
• Betraying a trust: Our story wronged a naive subject
• Broken Promise: Breaching a reporter-source confidence
• “But I thought you were . . .”: When a source doesn’t know you are a reporter
• “Can I take it back?”: Why we told our source ‘yes’
• Competitive disadvantage: Business blindsided by unnamed sources
• Getting it on tape: What if you don’t tell them?
• The great quote question: How much tampering with quotations can journalists ethically do?
• Let’s make a deal!: The dangers of trading with sources
• A phone-y issue?: Caller ID raises confidentiality questions
• The source wanted out: Why our decision was ‘no’
• The story that died in a lie: Questions about truthfulness kill publication
• Thou shalt not break thy promise: Supreme Court rules on betraying sources’ anonymity 
• Thou shalt not concoct thy quote: Supreme Court decides on the rules of the quotation game
• Thou shalt not trick thy source: Many a slip twixt the promise and the page
• Too good to be true: Blowing the whistle on a lying source
• Vulnerable sources and journalistic responsibility: Are we our brother’s keeper?
• The way things used to be . . . : Who says this new “objectivity” is better?
• When a story just isn’t worth it: Holding information to protect a good source
• When a story source threatens suicide: “I’m going to kill myself!”

Invading privacy

• The ethics of “outing”: Breaking the silence code on homosexuality
• “For personal reasons”: Balancing privacy with the right to know
• Intruding on grief: Does the public really have a “need to know?”
• Intruding on private pain: Emotional TV segment offers hard choice
• Seeing both sides: A personal and professional dilemma
• Two views on “outing”: When the media do it for you
• Two views on “outing”: When you do it yourself
• Unwanted Spotlight: When private people become part of a public story
• Whose right is it anyway?: Videotape of accident victim raises questions about rights to privacy

Military Issues

• The death of a soldier: Hometown decision for hometown hero
• Firing at Round Rock: Editor says “unpatriotic” story led to dismissal  
• A kinder, gentler news media?: Post-war coverage shows sensitivity to families
• Operation: Buy yourself a parade: New York papers pitch in for hoopla celebrating hide-and-seek war
• Rallying ’round the flag: The press as U.S. propagandists
• “Salute to military” ads canceled
• Tell the truth, stay alive: In covering a civil war, honesty is the only policy
• The windbags of war: Television’s gung-ho coverage of the Persian Gulf situation

Naming newsmakers

• Absent with no malice: Omitting part of the story for a reason
• Anonymity for rape victims . . . : should the rules change?
• An exception to the rule: a decision to change names
• The boy with a broken heart: Special problems when juveniles are newsmakers
• Civilly suitable: If law requires less, should media reveal more?
• Creating a victim: Plot for a fair story may not be foolproof
• “Everyone already knew”: A weak excuse for abandoning standards
• An exceptional case: Hartford Courant names rape victim
• Innocent victims: Naming the guilty . . . but guiltless
• Minor infraction: A newspaper’s case for breaking the law
• Names make news: One newspaper debates when and why
• Naming a victim: When do you break your own rule?
• Naming “johns”: Suicide raises ethical questions about policy
• Profile of controversy: New York Times reporter defends story on Kennedy rape claimant 
• What the media all missed: Times reporter finally sets record straight on Palm Beach rape profile
• Punishing plagiarizers: Does public exposure fit the sin?
• Sounding an alarm on AIDS: Spreading the word about someone who’s spreading the disease
• Suffer the Children: Journalists are guilty of child misuse

Other topics

• Anchor’s away: Where in the world is she? Or does it matter?
• The day the earth stood still: How the media covered the “earthquake”
• Good guys, bad guys and TV news: How television and other media promote police violence
• The Post’s exam answer story
• TV station “teases” suicide
• The year in review: 1990’s biggest ethical headaches and journalistic bloopers

Sensitive news topics

• Colorado media’s option play: Most passed; did they also fumble?
• Deadly lesson: Warning about sexual asphyxiation
• A delicate balance: Mental breakdowns & news coverage
• The Fallen Servant: When a hero is not a hero
• Handle with care: Priest murder story required extra sensitivity
• It’s the principle, really: Timing and people’s money matter, too
• Killing news: Responsible coverage of suicides
• Maybe what seems so right is wrong: A medical condition media-generated money can’t cure
• On the line: A reporter’s job vs. human decency
• Red flag for badgering: Ombudsman takes sportswriter to task
• Sharing the community’s grief: Little Rock news coverage of three teen-age suicides
• Suffer the children: Was story on molestation worth the human cost?
• The “super-crip” stereotype: Press victimization of disabled people
• “And then he said *&%*!!!”: When sexist and vulgar remarks are new
• When big is not better: Playing down a story for the community good
• When the KKK comes calling: What’s the story?
• Not the straight story: Can misleading readers ever be justified?

Workplace issues

• Agreeing to disagree: How one newspaper handles off-hour activities
• All in the family: When a journalist’s spouse creates a conflict of interests
• Family feud: Handling conflicts between journalists and partners
• Author! Author!: Ethical dilemmas when reporters turn author
• The Bee that roared: Taking a stand for editorial independence
• Brewing controversy: The commercialization of Linda Ellerbee
• Building barriers: The case against financial involvement
• Other views from librarians: When interests of client and newsroom conflict
• The ethics of information selling: Problems for library reference services
• Close to home: When your newsroom is part of the story
• Family Ties: When are relationships relationships relevant?
• How now, sacred cow?: United Way’s favored treatment by the media
• The ties that bind: Publisher’s link to United Way raises questions
• “Like any other story”: Can it be when it’s your union vs. your paper?
• When your newspaper is the news: Editors discuss their experiences
• Not friendly fire: News director at odds with CBS over story
• Overdraft on credibility?: Reporter faces conflict-of-interest charges
• Written rules can be hazardous: A lawyer views ethics codes
• Project censored, sins of omission and the hardest “W” of all – “why”
• Risking the newsroom’s image: How editors, in a good cause, can strain independence

Ethics Case Studies resources and social media channels

• Journalism and Media Ethics Cases
• Markkula Center for Applied Ethics
• Focus Areas
• Journalism and Media Ethics
• Journalism and Media Ethics Resources

For permission to reprint articles, submit requests to [email protected] .

How might news platforms and products ensure that ethical journalism on chronic issues is not drowned out by the noise of runaway political news cycles?

How can media institutions facilitate the free flow of information and promote truth during an election cycle shrouded in misinformation?

A reporter faces a choice between protecting a source or holding a source accountable for their public actions.

Should a source’s name be redacted retroactively from a student newspaper’s digital archive?

Should a student editor decline to publish an opinion piece that is culturally insensitive?

A tweet goes viral, but its news value is questionable.

What should student editors do if an opinion piece is based on factual inaccuracies?

Do student journalists’ friendships constitute a conflict of interest?

Is granting sexual assault survivors anonymity an act of journalistic compassion, or does it risk discrediting them?

Should student journalists grant anonymity to protect undocumented students?

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Resources for Educators & Students

ETHICS IN A NUTSHELL

Ethics in a Nutshell  provides an overview of ethics and journalism ethics. It identifies the major approaches to ethics and models of ethical reasoning. The nature of ethics, range of ethics, theoretical and applied ethics, and types of theories are discussed.

DIGITAL MEDIA ETHICS

Digital Media Ethics  deals with the distinct ethical problems, practices and norms of digital news media. Digital news media includes online journalism, blogging, digital photojournalism, citizen journalism and social media. It includes questions about how professional journalism should use this ‘new media’ to research and publish stories, as well as how to use text or images provided by citizens.

GLOBAL MEDIA ETHICS

Global Media Ethics  addresses development of a comprehensive set of principles and standards for the practice of journalism in an age of global news media. New forms of communication are reshaping the practice of a once parochial craft serving a local, regional or national public.

THE SHADID CURRICULUM

The Shadid Curriculum draws from the journalism of those who have won or been named a finalist of the Anthony Shadid Award for Journalism Ethics, and encourages student journalists to place themselves in the position of making difficult journalistic decisions.

Teaching Ethics

These teaching resources, which are compiled by the Media Ethics Division of the AEJMC (Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication), cover a broad range of materials for teaching media or journalism ethics, including advertising, public relations and entertainment ethics.

Case Studies

Class activities, teaching resources.

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The New Ethics of Journalism Principles for the 21st Century

• Kelly McBride - The Poynter Institute
• Tom Rosenstiel
• Description

See what’s new to this edition by selecting the Features tab on this page. Should you need additional information or have questions regarding the HEOA information provided for this title, including what is new to this edition, please email [email protected] . Please include your name, contact information, and the name of the title for which you would like more information. For information on the HEOA, please go to http://ed.gov/policy/highered/leg/hea08/index.html .

For assistance with your order: Please email us at [email protected] or connect with your SAGE representative.

SAGE 2455 Teller Road Thousand Oaks, CA 91320 www.sagepub.com

“This is an essential book about a profoundly important subject published at a critical time. The New Ethics of Journalism: Principles for the 21st Century focuses intensely on the role that journalism plays in our society, a role that remains urgent and unique even as so much changes in the profession and in the business of journalism, as well as in our global society.”

                                                                            -- Bob Steele , Distinguished Professor of Journalism Ethics at DePauw University and                                                                                Director of The Janet Prindle Institute for Ethics

An excellent reader in journalistic ethics - I recommend it to undergradauate students in photojournalism.

This book is a great teaching resource because of its easy-to-read style, but also because it is rich in examples and case studies. The books will be a valuable resource for both lectures and seminars.

This book is highly important and goes into depth at the ever changing face of journalism, as students are the future of the next generation of journalists it is important they understand the ethics involved in it.

It superficially looks good but I haven't assigned chapters yet to read. I will need a bit more time, thanks.

KEY FEATURES:

• A new set of Guiding Principles for Journalists that reflect the standards most modern newsrooms are using today is presented in the introduction.
• Case Studies at the end of each chapter reinforce abstract concepts in a concrete, contemporary application.
• Chapters by 14 journalism thought leaders and practitioners address the problems facing journalism today.

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How To Find Interesting And Unique Sources And Case Studies

September 27, 2021 (Updated September 27, 2021 )

Finding the most suitable person to centre your articles on is like adding in a secret ingredient to your dish – it pulls the whole thing together. But finding relevant case studies can be quite a feat – you have to make sure they’re the most relevant person, that they’re offering insightful comments, and, most importantly, that they’re available.

During the pandemic, face-to-face meetings – where you can develop a rapport and feed off interviewees answers and energy – have not been a possibility, leaving only virtual options. Journalists have had to find creative new ways to interview sources including Zoom, voice notes, DMs, emails, and texts. But how do you go about finding the right people in the first place?

Using Social Media, From Reddit To Facebook Groups

As a reporter who has worked for various national outlets, I had my usual go-to places for case studies including Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Meanwhile, my emails were also an archive of contacts willing to chat to me. The more I reached out to people and the more I wrote, I started developing a diverse contact book that I could come back to – remember you can also use the same experts for more than one piece, or ask them to put you in touch with the relevant people.

But, ultimately, you still need to know where to start. It can be tempting to just put a #JournoRequest call out on Twitter, but you’ll often find better results by finding people yourself, rather than just letting the same people come to you.

“I generally think that if you’re trying to look for really high quality case studies, really original stuff, it’s not the best place to find them,” agrees Sophie Gallagher , an award-winning freelance journalist speaking at a Journo Resources masterclass. “You just get a load of journalists, who are also just sat on Twitter, replying to you. It’s self selecting, it’s people coming to you.”

Instead, Sophie says her trick is to use Twitter Advanced Search , a set of filters that allow you filter tweets by location, keywords, and dates. You can also use TweetDeck  (a free online dashboard by Twitter itself) to set up columns to monitor certain searches. “People are so frequently really pleased, that this message they’ve been putting into the universe, someone has got back to them.”

As well as the most popular social media platforms, I also use Reddit to find more niche groups. For example, when I did a series on incels , Reddit was an apt place to find such subcultures. You can follow all the subreddits you like – and provided you’re not breaking any admin rules – you can reach out to suitable people via this medium.

“There are literally millions of people on there talking about millions of things,” agrees Amelia Tait, who covers cultures, trends, and the internet. “From one in a million rare diseases, to people making their own languages, to really intense fandoms.”

“Anything you’re writing a story about, you can find a case study on Reddit who is already talking about this issue organically. People on Reddit are surprisingly open to talking about their experiences, because they’re already there looking to have a conversation.”

Amelia suggests using a Google Site Search rather than using Reddit’s own tools to find relevant communities, as the social media company’s results are often poor. She also recommends using language specific to a certain region to help find UK case studies in a global subreddit. For example, searching for the word “mum” or “colour” is likely to show up less people based in the US.

She also recommends reaching out personally, rather than just posting a message or messaging the moderators as a whole. Don’t be surprised if a Redditor also wants to check who you are too. Thanks to the anonymous nature of the site, you may need to gain people’s trust.

“You can say here’s a similar article I wrote, here’s my tone, my style my approach. Verifying you are who you say you are, if you’re verified on Twitter, send them a message, or from the email address that’s on your website. It’s all about treating people as people.”

Finding case studies is one thing, but what about the experts you need to help put the story into context? We’re delighted to have partnered with ResponseSource as our 2021 sponsor, who have the perfect tool to help bring experts to you instantly. No, really.

The Journalist Enquiry Service is completely free to use, and allows you send a request to hundreds of relevant experts, charities, and PRs. You’ll be able to detail exactly what you want, how you’d like to hear back from them, and your deadline.

A spokesperson for the service tells Journo Resources: “More than 30,000 journalists and broadcasters use ResponseSource and our Journalist Enquiry Service to secure essential insight, information and connections from a selected range of trusted and reliable contacts.

“It puts you in touch with experts, case studies and PR contacts from all sectors, saves you hours of research and helps you meet your deadlines.”

Try It Out For Yourself Here

I am also part of several Facebook groups of various persuasions – ranging from weddings to cats, families to budgeting. Honestly, there’s a Facebook group for everything .

Even if you’re not actively looking for a case study, they’re a great place to hang out which have helped me come up with story ideas and find the right person to speak to. If you join and are requesting comment, just make sure you’re being very upfront about what you need and what you’re planning to do with the information.

Dr Lily Canter, a money and health journalist who also co-founded Freelancing For Journalists , says there’s no one set way to find a case study. “If it’s a consumer story and it’s around fuel and energy, then I will probably go and find niche Facebook groups. So that’s normally a starting point. If I’m looking for something very specific, I might go on a forum like Money Saving Expert, I can find people that are already having those conversations about the issues I’m writing about.”

Looking For Case Studies Beyond Social Media

Social media platforms can be a great tool for journalists, but there are other platforms, both on and offline that can be just as useful for journalists.

Aina J Khan , a New York Times International Fellow, recommends checking crowdfunding, charity and campaigning sites like GoFundMe, Change.org, JustGiving or the Government’s own petition website .

“I always find my case studies though researching lots,” she tells Journo Resources. “The example that I can think of was last year when I wrote a piece for The Guardian, about a Filipino nurse who died of suspected Coronavirus whose body couldn’t be found . His niece was trying to locate the body, and I found her on GoFundMe. The only reason I found out about what happened with her, and then pitched the story and got it commissioned, was because I reached out to her and had seen that she was trying to raise funds.”

Aina J Khan (L) and Lily Canter (R)

“I think there’s an ethical kind of question here as well, because in case studies like these, they’re really traumatic, they’re really heartbreaking circumstances. So I didn’t necessarily start out as ‘let me find the most disgusting or the most traumatic thing’. No, it just comes up through conversations through people that I’m talking to, researching plenty, and it just goes from one thing to another. A good habit to find strong case studies is just picking up the phone and talking to people that you’ve worked with.”

Aina also stresses that talking – and listening – to people within your own community can be one of the valuable ways of finding case studies. Speaking about a story she broke about how the first four doctors to die of Covid-19 being Muslim , she says: “How I got that was, a friend had flagged it up and asked if I’d noticed it.”

“I knew another friend who works for the British Islamic Medical Association, I reached out to him and was like, ‘Do you know anything about this?’ And one thing led to another. He knew one of the doctors who passed away and confirmed he was Muslim. Then I reached out to other people through social media to confirm the background of the doctors. Social media is actually really useful. I found the story because I saw that as kind of a gateway into actually going and exploring more. It’s definitely something I should do more of, because that’s how you get your stories.”

As a new journalist, it can feel intimidating to just start reaching out to people. But, as Lily advises, practice is the only way: “It can be a little bit daunting, the idea of reaching out to people that you don’t know. But the more you do it, the easier it becomes. And reaching out to case studies is really is essential, as a journalist, there’s no way around it. But it’s just the case that you have to keep on doing it and build contacts.”

This content is editorially independent and put together by the Journo Resources in-house team. It was funded and made possible through the support of ResponseSource, one of the UK’s leading services to help connect journalists and PRs .

One of their key tools for journalists is the Journalist Enquiry Service , which helps thousands of journalists connect directly with experts, charities, companies and PRs, to give them the information they need quickly. It’s a completely free tool

Find out more and manage your own requests here .

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Journalism School Case Studies

The Knight Case Studies Initiative at the Journalism School collaborated with CCNMTL to create multimedia case studies, which cover a range of topics confronting modern news organizations. The case studies are used in Professor Michael Shapiro's graduate journalism course, Decision Making in the Newsroom, to prepare students for the complexity of real-life decisions they will likely face during their careers in journalism. Each case requires students to put themselves in the shoes of editors, publishers, and reporters and to grapple with a wide range of editorial, ethical, and economic issues. Components of some case studies are slowly revealed in class, thus stimulating the actual situation and the stressful decision points that unfold with it. The case study initiative aims to develop journalism students' analytic, decision-making, management, and leadership skills by adding case-based learning to traditional journalism instruction.

Related project categories: Case Studies | Journalism

Related news: Apr-07-2008: CCNMTL Launches Multimedia Journalism Case Studies

Digital Platforms and Journalistic Careers: A Case Study of Substack Newsletters

Table of Contents

Executive summary.

In 2018, the technology reporter Taylor Lorenz predicted journalists would adopt influencer tactics to grow their own audiences and directly distribute content to their followers. Since then, journalists have continued to experiment with using digital platforms as part of their career activities. These digital tools provide journalists with the opportunity to capitalize on and monetize their personal brands and skills. In 2020, Lorenz followed up her prediction, anticipating that we will now begin to see “the dark side of this movement.” While independence provides journalists with new career opportunities, it also presents challenges as they risk burnout, precarity, audience pressures, and backlash for their independent work. 

The media is often studied as either institutional news work or social media activity. However, on digital platforms journalists increasingly blur the lines between personal and professional, institutional and independent, and reporting and commentary. Opportunities to monetize online content, connect with new audiences, and pursue creative and multimedia projects expand the ways in which journalists can piece together their careers. 

Thus, questions arise about how journalists structure and conceptualize their work when working on digital platforms. Why and how do journalists use these tools? What do journalists see as the tools’ strengths and weaknesses, and how do they fit into the broader media ecosystem? In what ways do they complement or contradict journalistic norms and standards? 

This report draws on a case study of journalists who use the digital newsletter platform Substack to understand how such platforms affect their work, careers, and identities. Through a combination of computational and qualitative methods, I seek to understand who uses Substack, why journalists use the platform, how they use it, and how Substack relates to the broader media ecosystem. 

I identify three dominant themes that explain how journalists use and interpret Substack. Each theme carries implications for how journalists structure their careers, produce media content, and conceptualize their identity.

• Journalists who view newsletters as a career resource use Substack to enhance their work within the traditional legacy media industry. They use their newsletters to create a persona as an expert on a niche topic, publicize their work, practice professional skills, and build a loyal audience in hopes of achieving career advancements. Most in this group tend to offer their newsletters for free; however, some who view themselves as experts in the topics on which they write charge a subscription fee. They seek to continue to uphold journalistic norms of objectivity, fairness, and balance even when embracing the freedom of work on digital platforms. In this way, these writers rely on ties with institutional media outlets to which they seek to link their careers. Strong ties to the media industry and value of journalistic norms strengthen their identification as journalists as a core aspect of their sense of self. 
• Alternatively, some pursue newsletters as an alternative media model . These journalists critique dominant media outlets, highlighting experiences of precarity, inefficiencies, and the ways in which norms of objectivity exclude personalized forms of information production and audience engagement. Within their newsletters, these writers strive to produce alternative stories that they feel dominant media institutions do not support or incentivize. Paid subscription models offer a new funding stream that grants writers independence to capitalize on their positionality and personal experiences as a legitimate source of content production. Thus, these journalists express broadened conceptions of their professional identity defined by innate qualities and skills as they seek to build careers unconstrained by institutional norms and barriers.
• Finally, a third subset of journalists define their newsletters as a lifeboat . For these journalists, newsletters serve as stopgaps when they lack other career opportunities and resources. These journalists are critical of the economic feasibility, informational quality, and role of technology companies in newsletter media models. In this way, they remain skeptical of Substack and do not plan to use the platform for a prolonged period. Feelings of hopelessness with the media industry led these writers to distance themselves from their professional identity as journalists. 

These three themes illustrate how digital tools expand the ways in which journalists pursue careers and conceptualize their work. By highlighting the multiple ways in which a digital platform affects the careers and structure of journalism, the report emphasizes the ambiguous implications of technological change, rather than representing it as predetermining changes or affecting those who use digital tools all in the same way. 1 Lee, Kevin Woojin, and Elizabeth Anne Watkins, “From Performativity to Performances: Reconsidering Platforms’ Production of the Future of Work, Organizing, and Society.” Sociologica 14(3), 205-15. https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.1971-8853/11673 The report concludes with a discussion of the implications of the diverse uses of digital platforms for journalists on the trustworthiness and consistency of information in the public sphere.

Introduction 

Ben started writing about hip-hop as a freelance journalist in 2014. He gradually built up connections with major outlets, producing articles picked up by business and culture magazines. However, Ben felt dissatisfied by the transactional nature of his work. “It didn’t really feel like I was making a true impact beyond getting an occasional check,” he explains. Ben wanted to make more of an impact with his writing. He wanted to build a relationship with his readers, rather than “writing for the editors” to make a living. 

In 2017, Ben started an email newsletter focused on the artists, producers, and fans innovating the business of hip-hop. The newsletter allowed him to build an ongoing and direct relationship with his readers and capitalize on his expertise in his niche topic. 

He describes his motivation to start the newsletter:

It was the opportunity to take advantage of the changing landscape in digital media, but also have an opportunity to elevate and have a proper home for the type of things that I was writing.… I saw what a few other early writers were doing in this space, where they were taking advantage of the tools and the platforms to create a home for their writing, and in many ways, being able to build a sustainable career and enterprise off that. It was taking advantage of the niche economics that I think are possible with the internet today, where because of how cheap it can be to get something started, you don’t necessarily need to have a vast user base. You can have a publication that appeals to a pretty small base, but a passionate base of readers, and then just build a business model around that.

Ben’s newsletter has grown into his full-time occupation, with more than ten thousand paying subscribers. He expresses pride in the entrepreneurialism of his pursuits and hopes to see “more independent media own their particular niches,” through which writers can “succeed to do what they want to do full-time.”

Ben’s story exemplifies how digital technologies are creating opportunities for journalists and information producers to structure their careers to produce and distribute content in new ways. Traditionally, dominant professional institutions—most notably legacy media publications and more recently digital news outlets—structured journalistic norms and dictated career success. These institutions served as gatekeepers that enabled insular professional groups to maintain control over the production and distribution of legitimate knowledge and information. 2 Karin Wahl-Jorgensen and Thomas Hanitzsch, eds., The Handbook of Journalism Studies, International Communication Association (ICA) Handbook Series (New York: Routledge, 2009). They promoted techniques, such as the norms of reporting, sourcing, and fact-checking, as methods of producing “objective” information. 3 Michael Schudson, Discovering the News (New York: Basic Books, 1981). Additionally, through the creation of explicitly professional spaces and publications, they intended to separate journalists’ professional roles as revealers or communicators of external facts from their private roles as subjective individuals with their own worldviews and values. 

In contemporary media work, digital technologies and online platforms allow journalists to use a variety of tools to produce and distribute content. Digital tools offer journalists new opportunities and constraints. Online platforms challenge the clear boundaries between professional and personal forms of content production. 4 Erin Reid and Lakshmi Ramarajan, “Seeking Purity, Avoiding Pollution: Strategies for Moral Career Building,” Organization Science, November 24, 2021, orsc.2021.1514, https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2021.1514. Furthermore, digital platforms, direct distribution channels, and diverse forms of information communication—podcasts, liveblogs, newsletters, etc.—blur the line between professional journalism and the increase of other types of digital creatives and content producers. 5 Emily Bell and Taylor Owen, “The Platform Press: How Silicon Valley reengineered journalism” (Columbia Journalism Review, 2017). Digital tools thus require journalists to combine networks and strategies from professional journalism with entrepreneurship, microcelebrity, influencer culture, research, and academia. Additionally, digitization creates new incentives for news work and ways of defining success, including a focus on audience engagement, circulation metrics, and digital attention. 6 Angele Christin, Metrics at Work (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2020); Caitlin Petre, “The Traffic Factories: Metrics at Chartbeat, Gawker Media, and The New York Times,” Tow Center for Digital Journalism. A Tow/Knight Report (Columbia School of Journalism, 2015); Rebecca Jablonsky, Tero Karppi, and Nick Seaver, “Introduction: Shifting Attention,” Science, Technology, & Human Values, November 22, 2021, 016224392110588, https://doi.org/10.1177/01622439211058823. Last, as journalists engage in independent forms of online content production, technology companies serve an increasingly central role in structuring how journalists produce—and audiences access—news and information. 7 Matt Carlson, “Automating Judgment? Algorithmic Judgment, News Knowledge, and Journalistic Professionalism,” New Media, 2017, 18. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1461444817706684  

Simultaneously, journalists face challenges in legacy media work due to increasing employment precarity and distrust of mainstream institutions. Dominant media outlets increasingly favor part-time, contingent, or contract-based work. 8 Chadha, Kalyani, and Linda Steiner, eds. Newswork and Precarity. London; New York: Routledge, 2022.; Cohen, Nicole S. “Entrepreneurial Journalism and the Precarious State of Media Work.” South Atlantic Quarterly 114, no. 3 (July 2015): 513–33.; Vallas, Steven P., and Angèle Christin. “Work and Identity in an Era of Precarious Employment: How Workers Respond to ‘Personal Branding’ Discourse.” Work and Occupations 45, no. 1 (February 2018): 3–37. https://doi.org/10.1177/0730888417735662 In 2021, the Pew Research Center reported that newsroom employment has fallen 26 percent since 2008. 9 Mason Walker, “U.S. newsroom employment has fallen 26% since 2008,” Pew Research Center , July 23, 2021/. Employment precarity incentivizes or necessitates journalists to seek alternative career opportunities, such as using digital platforms. Additionally, Americans remain skeptical about journalists’ and media companies’ ability to communicate quality information. The percentage of Americans who say they have a great deal or a fair amount of trust in the mass mainstream media fell from 53 percent to 40 percent between 2002 and 2020, according to a Gallup poll. 10 Megan Brenan, “Americans Remain Distrustful of Mass Media,” Gallup.com, September 30, 2020. That distrust contributes to news consumers seeking alternative sources of content outside of standard outlets and publications. 

This report focuses on journalists who write independent email newsletters on Substack within the context of the changing status and role of legacy and digital news work. I draw on fifty-two interviews with journalists who write email newsletters to offer a content analysis of their professional backgrounds and newsletter texts. I focus on how the prevalence of platform technologies and the changing role of media institutions affect the ways in which journalists navigate career opportunities, conceptualize their goals, produce content for their audiences, and define their professional identities. This includes understanding journalists’ motivation for working on digital platforms: how they distinguish career transition points and define success, produce content, perceive their audience and networks, and incorporate digital tools into their careers. 

The report proceeds in three additional sections. In section one, I describe the Substack case study and outline my research methodology. Section two presents the findings of the report in two subsections. First, I use computational data to explore newsletter writers on the platform and the network structure of newsletter content. I then use my core findings to draw on qualitative data to discuss three dominant themes that emerged from my interviews and explain how interviewees use and understand Substack: using newsletters as a (i) career resource, (ii) alternative media model, or (iii) lifeboat. Each of these themes relates to distinct goals, strategies for content production, and conceptions of professional identity. Finally, the report concludes with a discussion about how the varied ways in which journalists approach and interpret newsletter production relate to phenomena such as the crises of expertise, informational distrust, and post-truth politics.

Case Study and Method

This report focuses on journalists who use or have used the newsletter platform Substack. Focusing on a single platform allows comparisons of how journalists use the same digital tool.

Substack started in 2017 as an alternative media space in reaction to critiques of institutional and social media production. The company provides the infrastructure to write and distribute digital newsletters, giving creators control over their email subscription lists, archives, and intellectual property. Substack also focuses on writing as the main output versus requiring other technical or digital skills. The company targets journalists, writers, experts, and visual-content creators geared toward discursive output, although it has been expanding its focus and functionality. Journalists who use Substack largely do so for the purpose of sharing and producing textual information.

Substack was created by media insiders with the goal of using technology and entrepreneurship to help independent writers make a living by providing a direct distribution and subscription product. In doing so, Substack seeks to present an alternative to ad-supported media. The company contrasts its platform with those of advertisement-based media models that offer incentives toward shallow “clickbait” and “fake news.” Instead, Substack frames itself as a resource for free speech, “democratizing” discourse and producing “personal” and “trustworthy” content. Substack describes itself as a “platform” that “enables” content without dictating it, in contrast to a “publisher” that maintains content moderation discretion. However, the company has attracted controversy due to questions about content moderation and responsibility and accountability for discourse that is produced and distributed using the platform. 11 Pompeo, Joe. “‘There Has to Be a Line’: Substack’s Founders Dive Headfirst Into the Culture Wars.” Vanity Fair, May 23, 2022; Navlakha, Meera. “Why Substack Creators Are Leaving the Platform, Again.” Mashable, March 9, 2022; Schulz, Jacob. “Substack’s Curious Views on Content Moderation.” Lawfare, January 4, 2021. In response to criticism over free speech and writer precarity, the company has added new features for its users, such as access to legal advice, writer office hours, and community-building resources.  

As of 2021, Substack reported millions of users and more than a million paying subscribers. 12 Tiffany Hsu, “Substack’s Growth Spurt Brings Growing Pains,” The New York Times, April 13, 2022. Its top ten writers reportedly earn more than $7 million in annual revenue. The company is a venture-backed startup. Additionally, the company typically takes 10 percent of paid subscription fees, which range from approximately $5 to $50 per month but are not required. The most popular writers on Substack can make six-figure salaries and more yearly income than in standard media jobs; however, some writers often do not consider newsletter writing as a form of full-time work and thus may balance it with other professional commitments. 13 Chang, Clio. “The Substackerati.” Columbia Journalism Review, Winter 2020. Given its semiprofessional nature, Substack provides an ideal case study to understand how new career resources offered on digital platforms affect the goals, strategies, and identities of journalists. 

The report includes computational and qualitative data to assess journalists on Substack. Computational data include large-scale queries of information drawn directly from the platform, such as writer topics, professional backgrounds, and network patterns. These data provide an overview of who uses the platform and the subjects they cover to help inform the subsequent thematic analysis.

The report’s core findings are based on qualitative data from interviews with fifty-two journalists who write digital newsletters; analysis of their newsletter content, particularly About pages and initial posts that describe their newsletter’s content, purpose, and structure; and online information on their professional background, such as their LinkedIn page, Muck Rack profile, or personal website. Interview subjects were recruited from multiple points of contact to reflect a range of journalists using the platform. (See appendix A for descriptive statistics.) 14 The sample includes six writers who used Substack but switched to producing a digital newsletter on another platform. There was no discernible difference between the justifications for and use of Substack in this subset of interviewees and the larger sample.  

Initial respondents were identified using searches on Google and Substack. Additional respondents were recruited using snowball sampling. Respondents were identified as journalists based on how they self-describe in their newsletter profile, or by using information about their broader professional background available online. The sample captures journalists with a variety of careers that include both independent and institutional forms of work. 15 Media ecosystems have also been shown to have a relationship to partisan identity (see Benkler, Faris, and Roberts 2018; Hemmer 2016; Lemieux and Schmalzbauer 2000; Nadler, Bauer, and Konieczna 2020). The study includes participants with a range of political viewpoints, but did not create a representative sample based on partisanship.

Professionals most strongly associated with institutions are employed by a news media company and receive a sustainable salary from their place of employment. In contrast, independent workers take on freelance work with no primary employer and/or self-describe as “independent.” Interview questions were focused on the subject’s professional life, including how they go about their work, balance professional opportunities, and describe their goals and objectives. The research uses qualitative data to illuminate the ways in which digital platforms affect the practices and understandings of journalists, but does not provide a representative or generalizable sample. Textual data, including the About pages of each newsletter and the LinkedIn, Muck Rack, or personal website of interview respondents, supplement interview data to understand respondents’ backgrounds and trajectories. Conclusions are based on how interviewees describe the goals, content, and motivations for their newsletter connected to the structure of their careers and professional identities.

The findings proceed in two subsections. First, the report draws on computational data to generate a layout of the Substack platform. The computational data provide a map of what topics newsletter writers focus on, what types of writers use the tool, and how their newsletters fit within the broader media landscape. The report then draws on qualitative interview and content analysis data focused specifically on how and why these journalists use Substack. 

A Computational Layout: Writers on Substack

Using computational methods, a co-researcher, Nick Hagar, and I explore the types of writers and content available on Substack. 16 I would like to thank Nick Hagar for his assistance with computational models and analysis. Substack maintains a discovery feature that sorts newsletters by category. When this research was collected in 2021, it maintained nineteen topical categories and has since added six more. Using the search feature, we approximated the landscape of the most active newsletters on the platform and their categorical labels. 17 The newsletters that are not captured by category search appear far less active: a median of 7 total newsletter posts for general search results, compared with 42 for category search results. Newsletters sorted by category posted a median of 3 days ago, whereas in the general search sample newsletters posted a median of 58 days ago. Thus, Substack’s taxonomy offers a good representation of active newsletters on the platform. Augmenting this approach with other search functions returns small and abandoned newsletters.  

Table 1 provides an overview of how many active newsletters appear within each category through the Substack search function. At the time of our research our analysis identified 2,686 unique active newsletters, a breakdown of which is presented in Table 1. 

Table 1: Active newsletters by category. Percentages are rounded to one-tenth of a percent.

Unsurprisingly, most Substack newsletters focus on broad and standard categories of media production, such as culture and politics. After 2021, the introduction of new categories of music, comics, crypto, parenting, fiction, and podcasts shows that niche sections of the platform are growing. Additionally, the prevalence of technology as the most active category points to the types of stories and topics most accessible as an independent media source. Writing about technology needs only a computer and internet connection, meaning it requires fewer resources than field reporting. Later in the report, journalists discuss their ability to establish their expertise writing about digital media, making it a lucrative category for newsletter production.  

We manually classified the 2,686 active newsletters to understand the professional background of the authors on the platform. Information on authors’ professional background was gleaned from writer biographies, as well as general information available on the Web. 

Table 2 represents the background classifications based on the nine most common professional backgrounds found on Substack.

Table 2: Substack user professional backgrounds. Percentages are rounded to nearest one-tenth of a percent.

Once again unsurprisingly, writers and discursive content creators made up most newsletter producers, as well as professionals who use newsletters to capitalize on and share specific expertise. The data suggest that journalists account for about 20 percent of content producers on Substack. 

Last, we looked at the relationship between newsletters and other forms of media by comparing hyperlinking citation patterns. We include newsletters that published more than one public post between 2020 and 2021, published posts at a cadence of at least one every thirty days, and published at least one post that included a hyperlink to another webpage (all newsletters in our sample met these criteria). We were only able to access free posts, so our sample does not include paywalled content. This produced a sample of approximately 1.1 million hyperlinks across 139,353 posts from 2,553 active newsletters. 

The results show that writers most commonly cite major media and platform domains such as Twitter, YouTube, and t he New York Times (Table 3). For example, 77 percent of newsletter writers in the sample have linked to YouTube, and 5 percent of writers have linked to t he New York Times . Furthermore, while there is large overlap in linking domains, at most, the same unique URL appears in only 2 percent of newsletters. The infrequency with which newsletters link to one another or to the same news story highlights the siloed nature of newsletter production on Substack. Rather than structurally representing an alternative media environment, writers arguably show a strong reliance on institutional news and established platforms. 

Hyperlinking patterns in newsletters match the broader structure of digital attention and influence on the Web, relying on common platforms and domains that are viewed as legitimate, relevant, and likely to generate attention. 18 Lasorsa, Dominic L., Seth C. Lewis, and Avery E. Holton. “Normalizing Twitter: Journalism Practice in an Emerging Communication Space.” Journalism Studies 13, no. 1 (February 2012): 19–36, https://hdl.handle.net/11299/123293; Messner, Marcus, and Marcia Watson Distaso. “The Source Cycle: How Traditional Media and Weblogs Use Each Other as Sources.” Journalism Studies 9, no. 3 (June 2008): 447–63, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259563188_The_source_cycle_How_traditional_media_and_weblogs_use_each_other_as_sources; Noam, Eli M. Media Ownership and Concentration in America. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2009; Usher, Nikki, and Yee Man Margaret Ng. “Sharing Knowledge and ‘Microbubbles’: Epistemic Communities and Insularity in US Political Journalism.” Social Media + Society 6, no. 2 (April 2020), https://doi.org/10.1177%2F2056305120926639. Thus, these results indicate that newsletters may be framed as an alternative or independent career resource, but are highly referential to and dependent on dominant media and technology platforms and publications. In this way, digital newsletters represent an element of an integrated and interdependent media environment that journalists must navigate to build their careers.

Table 3: Top 12 domain hyperlinks

Journalists’ uses and interpretations of Substack

Analysis of the qualitative data reveals three dominant themes in interviewees’ rationales for starting and maintaining Substack newsletters. Journalists I interviewed engage with and understand Substack as a (i) journalistic resource, (ii) alternative media model, or (iii) career lifeboat. Each use corresponds with different career goals, strategies of content production, and conceptions of professional identity.

Newsletters as a Journalistic Resource

Interviewees who use their digital newsletters as a career resource describe the ways in which they offer an outlet to establish a specialized portfolio, house a holistic body of work, practice the craft of writing, and secure additional career opportunities. One national political reporter describes how advice from a veteran journalist whom she admires to “build your quote-unquote personal brand and make a name for yourself” inspired her to start a newsletter. Such journalists saw newsletters as helpful in achieving career transitions. 

An early-career journalist who works for a digital outlet started a newsletter in hopes of acquiring a book deal:

I wanted to write a book proposal…but I didn’t have a body of writing on [the topic].… Once it became clear that I was not going to be able to build out the bulk of that body of writing at my current job, I started looking for a new job, and I started working on this Substack, which I also hope gets me a new job at some point down the line. I think that [it is helpful] if I have something I can point to, to prove I can write about this, people are interested in it, and react to it when I write about it, and you can read it all in one place.

By housing a body of work on the specialization she desires to write about, this journalist’s newsletter serves as a resource to showcase her ability to write, report, and think critically about that topic.

Journalists in this subset thought newsletters were particularly advantageous to build a specialization and gain credibility on niche topics. While they could not always control the topics they wrote about for institutional publications, they could tailor their newsletters to their interests and hopes for their future careers. 

Another early-career journalist describes how he uses his newsletter to build credibility writing about the media: 

I knew that I needed to establish an authority in this field and the process of writing something every week and being in conversation with other people and reading all the time. It’s a really virtuous cycle in the sense that by doing it, I make other people aware of me and my thoughts and my credibility.

The newsletter helps him maintain a schedule and structure. He advertises the success of his newsletter by listing major institutional news outlets that have cited his work, such as Vox, Nieman Lab, and Poynter. In this way, his newsletter serves as a tool to connect him with major outlets and media figures that model his career goals, using Substack as a career resource to build expertise and connections.

This subset of journalists also sees Substack as a resource to practice and experiment with writing. Many interviewees mention writing as one of their favorite aspects of their career, but lament barriers to writing on the job. 

A journalist recently employed as a breaking news reporter describes frustrations that detract from her enjoyment of the work: 

As a writer, it’s hard. You want to do your thing, to be reporting and writing, but there’s all these barriers. You can’t get a job. You can’t get paid. You might be sending lots of freelance pitches, but editors are just saying “No, no, no.” It feels like you can never just get the work done. This was a great opportunity for me to start doing the creative work and thinking and hold myself to my journalistic standards and practices.

She describes her newsletter as her “passion project,” to “report it out for myself to have the learning experience, to write about it, and really think about something on a little bit of a higher level than in my day-to-day breaking news role.” 

Other interviewees similarly describe their newsletters as outlets for “creativity,” a tool for “professional development,” or a “learning experience.” In this way, these journalists use their newsletters as an outlet to indulge aspects of their career that they feel are unfulfilled in other jobs. Newsletters also allow journalists to deepen skills central to their careers, such as writing, reporting, and critical thinking.

Most interviewees who use their newsletters as a professional resource offer free subscriptions. These journalists believe that keeping their newsletters free allows more readers to access their content and helps them publicize their work. As one interviewee describes: “Sneaking in my stories throughout my newsletter on Substack has been a really great way to get that into people’s inboxes and actually clicked on.” However, a few journalists who said they use the newsletter as a career resource do charge subscription fees. They view themselves as established experts on the topics that they write about, rather than using the newsletter as a resource to build expertise. 

An editorial director at a business and culture magazine describes her expertise based on her extensive work experience of more than a decade in multiple newsroom roles. Her newsletter, focused on the craft of journalism, has a monthly subscription fee. She decided to paywall the content because she “was putting time and effort into it” and “thought it was worth something.” 

Many journalists who consider themselves experts write on the media, news industry, and digital culture in their newsletters. In this way, the structure of journalistic work using digital tools creates opportunities for journalists to specialize and write about their experiences and knowledge of media and internet trends. 

Journalists using their newsletters as a career resource balance personalization and professional norms within their content. One journalist who specializes in audience engagement and new-media innovation notes that “keeping that personal note is really important,” especially to connect with and build a loyal audience. 

Another journalist, who writes about the intersection of gender and politics for a prominent American magazine, notes that the personal nature of the newsletter lessens hierarchical divides between writer and reader: 

I’m much more open in the Substack than you could be in a traditional magazine article.… When you do a…review for a mainstream newspaper there is more of a status divide. 

Thus, newsletters give these writers the opportunity to build more dialogic relationships with their readers and express more personalized viewpoints. 

While interviewees recognize that newsletters offer a more personal outlet, they remain careful to uphold professional norms of journalistic production. They do so by differentiating their newsletters from their formal career writing, and by integrating the role of their personal experience and voice within journalistic standards. 

A journalist who runs the culture and economics section of a digital outlet uses her newsletter to write articles related to, but separate from, her formal career: “The newsletter is connected to the interests of [my section], but not really something we would ever do.” She describes her newsletter as “janky” because it does not contain “original reporting…it’s mostly Googling.” The purpose of the newsletter is to write “something that’s my own, that has nothing to do with the job.” In this way, she separates the personal and playful nature of her newsletter from the standards and rigor associated with the journalistic norms important for her professional work.

Other writers uphold journalistic standards by incorporating the personal nature of the newsletter with journalistic norms. A national political reporter describes how he thinks “the objectivity of a journalist involves not coming into a story as a blank slate, but in the method that they report the story, and the fairness with which they report the story.” He says his personal identity influences how he relates to politics without compromising journalistic standards:

I grew up as a midwesterner, and so I have opinions about the unique identities of states like Michigan versus Ohio, or Indiana versus Illinois. I have preconceptions about the states, but as I’m reporting on them, I do think it’s possible to be cognizant of those preconceptions and use the method of reporting journalism to be open-minded and fair and balanced in the actual reporting about those states.

For him, the journalistic method of reporting neutralizes preconceived and personal perceptions to create “fair” and “balanced” information. 

Overall, however, these interviewees express concern about how newsletter production may affect journalistic standards without the enforcement of norms and gatekeeping provided by media institutions. Two interviewees explain their worries that newsletters cannot provide the same quality of information. 

The first, who writes for a prominent American magazine, claims:

[Newsletters are] great for comment. If you want to have strong opinions on established facts, then that’s something that newsletters can do very well. But who is the person doing the hardest bit of journalism, which is establishing the facts in the first place? There are no shortcuts for that, which takes a really long time and costs a lot of money.

The second journalist, who focuses on audience engagement for a national publication, agrees: 

I think about all the rigorous editing and the rigorous reporting that goes into more traditional outlets that is not done on the personal level, which I don’t think is bad all the time. But I do think that when we see personal reporters with their own newsletters pursuing ambitious stories, I think a lot of times there may be issues of accuracy. 

For these interviewees, journalistic norms of reporting, objectivity, and accuracy remain valuable and important standards. Newsletters prove useful as a tool for commentary, essaying, or, as one veteran reporter describes, “writing off the news”—using traditional news stories as a jumping-off point—but newsletters cannot stand in for the types of reporting core to journalistic norms and identity. Indeed, these journalists strongly identify with their professional roles. As one journalist describes: “It’s through me like a stick of rock. I don’t know what I would be if I didn’t do this job.… I would have to radically rethink my life and start all over again.” In this way, journalists use their newsletter in connection to dense networks and ties to the media industry that continue to structure journalistic careers, norms, and identity.  

Newsletters as a Journalistic Alternative

Interviewees who use Substack as their main career activity consider the platform to be an innovative, entrepreneurial venture to structure alternative career paths. They critique the structures and norms of institutional media, noting the ways in which Substack provides a new media model. Notably, they point to connections with corporations and reliance on advertising that corrupt the quality of information in the media. A beauty writer critiques the connection between beauty publications and the commercial beauty industry: “Publications typically work hand in hand with brands to create content, such as product reviews and stories with favorable PR angles.” Similarly, a political reporter critiques advertising media models for incentivizing clickbait and feeding polarization:

In the news world, most journalists, media outlets, television networks, and podcasts survive on advertisement revenue. Ad revenue is driven by viewership. That means the more people see an advertisement, the more valuable it is. This incentivizes reporters, editors, radio hosts, television stations, and news outlets to make their content as viral, explosive, and sensational as possible.… It also creates conflicts of interest between publishers and the people paying them to run their advertisements. 

The writer describes how he feels his newsletter offers a transformed product:

[My newsletter] is entirely subscriber supported. By asking my readers to support this newsletter instead of advertisers or investors, I am incentivized to create good content…not content that is clickbait or designed to go viral or make an advertiser happy.

By capitalizing on the subscriber model, he seeks to change the relationship between reader, writer, and journalistic content. Paid subscriptions directly connect him to his readers, making him accountable to and empowering his audience, rather than attracting investors or advertisers. In this way newsletters offer an alternative structure to produce news and information.

Journalists in the study also critiqued the hassle, inefficiency, and precarity of journalistic careers, incentivizing them to focus more on their newsletters as outlets in which they feel they have more control and freedom over their work. A veteran reporter describes how she experienced a decline in opportunities to write for major publications:

The media is shrinking…the traditional media that I’ve written for, like the Washington Post , the Wall Street Journal , all of these, they can’t afford freelancers. They don’t have space; they don’t have staff.

A Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist similarly describes frustrating experiences working within institutional media:

It’s an annoying way to work, and it doesn’t pay great.… I would race to get a piece done, and then the publication would be like, “Oh, we’re actually not going to run it for the next 24 hours because this other thing happened.”… You end up playing email tag with an editor: it’s like, “Hey, did you get the piece that I sent you?” And then the news peg passes, and then you have to look for a new news peg, and then you have to rewrite the piece because time has gone by…then, like, having to rewrite it four hundred times because the news peg passed in the time that it took them to write you an email.

Starting a newsletter appealed to him because he can do “it on my own schedule.” He can directly distribute content to his readers when he feels his pieces are ready, rather than wait on the whims of a publication’s news cycle. Thus, newsletters offer an alternative that gives journalists freedom, independence, and control over their workflow.

Given the formalized nature of Substack as a career path, these journalists describe the importance of subscribers for their livelihood and as an economic model for their careers. An award-winning investigative journalist describes how his subscriber base serves as a career resource:

I can create a subscription base that will be portable, and maybe in some ways more durable, or no less durable, than actually getting a job at a big institution.

Another long-form journalist describes how he was inspired by the success of subscription podcasts to build his own newsletter:

For example, the Chapo Trap House guys who were making so much money on Patreon.… I was like, “Wow. It never occurred to me to do that.”… It was like, “So you can put something out in the world and people will pay you four, five, six bucks a month just because they like it. And you can make a lot of money that way.” I looked at that type of business model, and that’s what the Substack does.

In this way, digital platforms serve as a tool to actualize transactions between writers and readers. Subscriber models incentivize content quality by the necessity of attracting readers. Thus, from this perspective, subscriptions ensure newsletter integrity despite often lacking the traditional fact checkers or editors found in traditional media.  

Last, these interviewees critique power structures in institutional news that they feel limit the range of legitimate perspectives included in news content. A music writer describes his experience at a culture magazine that led him to quit and focus on his newsletter, where he can highlight different voices, perspectives, and stories. “People around me [at the magazine] were more interested in perpetuating misogyny and bigotry and marginalization of anybody that’s not a man, essentially, or identifies as a man,” he says.

Similarly, a food writer describes her dissatisfaction with institutional food media given the exclusion of multiple perspectives and political ideas:

When I was writing for food magazines it was very much centered on a middlebrow white American gaze. You’re writing for Middle America, and don’t upset them. That was the perspective.… There is just a lack of interest in systemic problems outside of talking about racial representation or gender representation. There’s an idea of diversity as just different skin colors and genders, and not political ideas. So that’s what I’m able to actually present in my newsletter.

She now focuses almost exclusively on her newsletter, where she writes about the intersection of food, ethical consumption, economics, and sustainability, hoping to inform readers that “food decisions aren’t made in a vacuum.” She values the fact that the Substack platform allows her to “own my own time” and “create the thread of my own thought” to produce alternative content and arguments she felt institutional publications did not accept.

Newsletters can offer an alternative space to produce content outside journalistic norms. Instead of adhering to norms of objectivity, journalists in this survey describe their methods of content production as intentionally incorporating subjectivity as a different basis to produce information. 

A journalist with a background in reporting on tech, markets, and fashion describes how when he worked for institutional publications, he felt tokenized as a reporter of color and forced to write about certain topics and narratives. In his newsletter, he embraces his full identity to center his point of view:

If you come from an underrepresented or overlooked or underserved community, it’s difficult to not bring all of you into a story and [keep] different parts of yourself siloed off to tell a story. That’s a bit dehumanizing. I think part of making roles and creating space for as many storytellers and journalists and reporters as possible is to really get rid of this idea that you can’t be fair or accurate if you have a point of view. I think that the idea of objectivity and leaving your identity at the door, all that does is serve patriarchal white supremacy. It serves the people who have always gotten to tell the stories.… I just try to tell stories that matter to me…I write from my point of view.

He challenges journalistic norms of objectivity by drawing on his own perspective as a legitimate alternative to inform his work.

In this way, newsletters shift journalistic identity to incorporate individual experience and traits traditionally conceptualized as separate from professional roles. Rather than describe their professional titles or learned skills as core to their identity, these journalists reference innate qualities such as “curiosity,” “empathy,” “deep thinking,” and “skepticism” as defining professional traits and identities. As one says: “Journalism for me is not a profession—it’s a personality disorder. I’m nosy. I’ve got a big mouth. I’m aggressive and pushy.” She identifies as a journalist as a personality trait and intrinsic part of her identity, rather than attaching the identity to a professional position, skill, or role. Journalistic status composes both a personal and professional identity. Journalists in the study continue to see themselves as professionals across contexts or roles, rather than within specific career positions or performing certain job skills. 

Newsletter as a Journalistic Lifeboat 

A third group of interviewees describes using Substack as a temporary tool when they lack other career opportunities or resources. These journalists tended to gravitate to the platform after losing employment at other media outlets. As such, Substack offers a way for them to structure their time, pursue their writing, maintain their journalistic identities, and continue in their professional field. The platform provides a free, accessible, but temporary outlet for journalists who hope to transition to other platforms or opportunities. 

These interviewees tended to be the most skeptical about Substack as a media model and platform. They do not see newsletter writing as a sustainable career activity or resource. Fundamentally, these journalists critique the financial model of newsletter writing and the difficulty of amassing subscribers without a pre-established reputation, digital following, or institutional ties to legacy media. 

A freelancer who decided to end his Substack newsletter describes the financial feasibility of the pursuit at length:

If you start a newsletter without a preexisting fan base, or at the very least a large and active Twitter following, building an audience…is very  tricky. You basically need to churn out posts and hope a couple of them go viral on Twitter so you get a ton of more subscribers.… But the economics of this are pretty unfriendly. If you got 500 subscribers to pay you $5 a month, you’d be making $2,500 a month, or, oops, actually $2,250 after Substack takes its cut. And you’re writing at a minimum a post a week, probably more than that. If you’re doing two posts a week, say eight a month, you’re actually only making $281.25 an article. That isn’t that  bad, but then you consider that the burger place down the street pays $19 an hour . You really aren’t in “livable wage” territory from a Substack alone until you have thousands of paid subscribers. And if you’re using Substack to supplement income from freelancing or a day job, it’s a  lot  of work.… Once you put up a paywall, you have the additional problem of a lot of your content now being hidden from public view, i.e., it can’t go viral and attract new subscribers.

He laments that subscription media models are unfeasible for most writers, as well as illogical, given the tension between paywalling content and attracting new subscribers. Furthermore, rather than newsletters serving as an outlet for alternative narratives or in-depth thoughts, he describes them as aimed toward “virality” and produced on a fast-paced timeline. Overall, by comparing Substack writing with service work, he highlights the low status and financial difficulties of the pursuit. 

These writers, like many others, describe growing their subscriber base as the most challenging part of producing a newsletter. Across the three categories of journalistic work, no writers felt they had figured out the best newsletter media model. All felt uncertainty in the best way to balance growth, financial viability, and content accessibility. The difficulty in monetizing their newsletters proved particularly detrimental to writers without other income streams. Thus, journalists relying on Substack as a lifeboat expressed the most frustration because they remain in precarious professional positions. 

A veteran reporter at a major urban paper lost his job when the publication went through layoffs. He started a Substack newsletter as “sort of my best option as far as employment.” However, after a few months he was disillusioned with the platform:

It’s not sustainable. It’s been very difficult, frankly, to increase subscriptions. I pretty much hit a wall about two months ago and haven’t been able to increase it. So I’m pretty down on the Substack model. I think there’s just too many things out there, too many subscriptions, and it’s too hard.

Newsletter writing becomes economically unsustainable without a substantial reader base. Indeed, interviewees described the most successful writers on the platform as those who “already had these huge Twitter followings” or “already have a brand, already have a name, and already have a reach.” In this way, these journalists see newsletter writing as supporting existing structures of power and privilege within the media, rather than providing an alternative environment.

Furthermore, these journalists argue that subscription newsletters do not incentivize quality information. Rather than newsletters serving as outlets for journalists to write about their passions, deepen their writing skills, or produce content from an alternative perspective, they feel as if newsletters do not allow for the types of meaningful content they strive to produce. 

A political reporter describes how creating newsletter content became less of a priority

“Write a new newsletter” gradually slipped to the bottom of my to-do pile. I did less reporting for the newsletter and treated it more like a place to put my thoughts about the stuff I was working on and reading.… I don’t really want to write these kinds of stories anymore.… “The conversation” often seems to consist of a gaggle of pundits and Twitter addicts nodding in agreement with one another.

Furthermore, other journalists in the survey describe Substack subscription models as seeming to prioritize sensationalist and potentially viral content to attract readers and generate attention. A culture writer who now works as part of a bundled newsletter cooperative describes such incentives:

The discursive oxygen around the site has been allocated or has been sucked up by people who are using it in a way to stoke rage, or stoke anger, outrage, that sort of thing. When you create those feelings, they become powerful feelings that make people want to subscribe.

In contrast, she aims to “contextualize,” “analyze,” and “do some reporting and actually talking to people” in her work. To her, anger and outrage do not equate to meaningful content production, even if they garner more attention or subscribers.

Some interviewees also critique Substack as a platform and business that participates in the media environment given the uneasy relationship between media and technology companies. One writer describes his worries about the power that technology companies play in structuring what digital content gains visibility: 

A lot of stuff with Big Tech and Facebook and Google is kind of scary these days, with a lot of alternative media locked out or at least buried in Google searches. I’m worried about Silicon Valley’s influence in the media.

Such critiques led interviewees to desire that Substack take more responsibility for the content produced and promoted on the platform. To them, it functioned like a publisher that curates and distributes content, rather than as a neutral digital tool. 

Another collection of young journalists who experimented on the platform but since moved their writing to an independent site critiqued Substack’s policies:

Substack could have been a great place for experimentation that breaks away from the bigoted speech that’s dominated American newspapers during pivotal moments of social transformation (see how newspapers framed integration, interracial marriage, and gay marriage). Instead, it’s more of the same. Substack isn’t the future of media. It’s just a content management system run by a company that aims to prioritize profit over people’s lives.

From this perspective, rather than representing a hopeful or useful media model, Substack represents the perpetuation of the faults of traditional and institutional media. Thus, this subset of journalists views newsletter writing as an unsustainable pursuit and problematic media model. 

A veteran international reporter sums up this view with his critique of the current media ecosystem, in which smaller publications and opportunities struggle to exist, as well as Substack’s role within it:

If you consolidate a business into big players and then that sucks up all the talent, then everything else becomes nothing more than an audition. So your book is an audition, and your big article somewhere is an audition, and your leadership of a midsized manager’s room is an audition, and your Substack is certainly an audition. The only place you’re going to get quality editing, good access, some imprimatur that matters under a living wage, is going to be, like, three places. That doesn’t feel sustainable to me. I’m suspicious of the Substack model, because it seems to be based on the idea of a lifeboat more than on the idea of an actual legitimate setting.

These journalists feel frustrated by a lack of opportunities in institutional media and hopeless about the promise of independent digital tools. Such pessimism leads them to express distance from their journalistic identity. As the international reporter continues: “My current job is to pay my mortgage and feed my kid in an industry that has done its best to die over the past decade.”

This report presents a case study of the digital newsletter platform Substack to explore how journalists use and incorporate it into their careers and how it relates to the broader media environment. Rather than falling prey to technological determinism, willful optimism, or dispiriting pessimism about the role of technology in the future of news, the report highlights some of the ways in which digital technologies can be used and understood. 

In particular, I identify differences between journalists who use Substack to (i) complement their work for other publications and outlets, (ii) create an alternative media environment, and (iii) keep them connected to their professional field when they lack other opportunities and resources. 

Each journalist’s use of Substack is associated with specific career goals, strategies of content production, and conceptions of journalistic identity. By focusing on the practices, intentions, and understandings of digital newsletters expressed by the journalists themselves, the report highlights how structures of news work may influence journalistic careers, as well as how journalists shape the role, use, and understanding of digital tools. 

My findings point to an increase in the range of methods and logics journalists rely on to produce information as they access expanded resources to build their careers. As communication technologies continue to evolve, journalists confront ever more opportunities and tools to shape their work and careers. We see journalists experimenting not only with newsletters but with media such as podcasting and texting, and structures such as publishing work as a collective and hosting live events. Such opportunities expand the types of work journalists produce, incorporating new skills, forms of expertise, audience relationships, and methods of reporting. At the same time, these experimentations present themselves as public, facing toward an audience as journalists seek to publicize and monetize their work and brands. As journalistic careers evolve to include a wider variety of styles, tools, and methods, the opportunities also grow for audiences to access diverse content.

While these trends expand the modes of and voices able to contribute to public conversations, they also contribute to phenomena such as the crises of expertise, ontological insecurity, and post-truth politics without common norms that structure the flow, distribution, and norms of producing and accessing news and information. Readers increasingly access a high-choice media environment via newspapers, websites, tweets, podcasts, and newsletters, among others. Such a buffet of content can overwhelm and segment media consumers, limiting the amount of shared content and perspectives available to audiences. 19 Benkler, Yochai, Rob Faris, and Hal Roberts. Network Propaganda: Manipulation, Disinformation, and Radicalization in American Politics. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2018. Boczkowski, Pablo J. “Abundance.” Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021. Nielsen, Rasmus Kleis, and Richard Fletcher. “Democratic Creative Destruction? The Effect of a Changing Media Landscape on Democracy.” In Social Media and Democracy, edited by Nathaniel Persily and Joshua A. Tucker, 1st ed., 139–62. Cambridge University Press, 2020. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/9781108890960.008. Prior, Markus. Post-Broadcast Democracy: How Media Choice Increases Inequality in Political Involvement and Polarizes Elections. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. While structures such as newsletters can allow journalists to capitalize on niche audiences and produce content through a greater variety of means and media, these trends also present challenges for creating shared understandings of facts and narratives—one of the traditional functions of journalism as a pillar of civil society. It raises the question of the relationship between an increase in media content and the health and robustness of the media environment. Thus, newsletters and digital platforms offer new media opportunities, as well as challenge some of the core functions of news work. 

Furthermore, we see the interrelationships and dependencies between digital technologies and traditional media institutions. While digital tools are often touted as offering independence, the ways in which alternative technologies affect structures of power and privilege within the media remain limited. 

Interviewees employed by traditional media institutions often sought to uphold objective norms and climb traditional career hierarchies. In contrast, interviewees more focused on digital platforms embraced the freedom to create content on their own timelines, based on their own inclinations, and incorporating their own perspectives. In this way, they articulated alternative goals of expressing themselves, garnering attention online, building community, and connecting directly with their audiences. 

These styles and goals contrast with the more authoritative voice of professionalism backed up by journalistic norms and traditionally displayed in dominant media publications. However, journalists working on digital platforms must confront limits to their independence, counternormative trends, and creation of alternative media spaces. Even when working independently on digital platforms, journalists rely on dominant professional outlets and publications to publicize their work, gain visibility, and source content. 

The computational portion of this report showed that newsletter writers most often link their work to existing dominant outlets. This creates webs of media production that include both institutional and independent forms of news work centered on select core publications, themes, and figures. Furthermore, within that web, digital platforms themselves become central players as their tools, algorithms, and support shape the types of content produced and made visible. Thus, the report highlights how an expanded media environment that includes an array of journalistic opportunities presents both new potentials and pitfalls for empowering journalists and supporting their careers. 

In conclusion, I highlight several potential avenues for future research.

Journalistic careers: How are journalists using other digital tools? How do these opportunities exacerbate or mitigate employment precarity? How sustainable is journalistic work on digital platforms, and newsletter writing in particular? What types of opportunities and careers do journalists hope for that can be supported by new technological tools? 

Political economy of news work: How do subscriber-based funding models of news work change the incentives for journalistic production? What role do technology companies play in supporting the production and distribution of journalism? How should these platforms and companies be regulated and/or held accountable for worker livelihoods and the content produced using their tools?  

Audiences: What attracts readers to journalistic outlets, media, and writers? How do readers interpret journalistic writing distributed through various means? How do they relate to the readers of similar and/or different outlets and content? How do readers evaluate information from different sources and distributed on different platforms? How do these sources interact in ways that are complementary and/or contradictory in shaping audience views?

Challenges to professional norms: How are journalistic norms of objectivity, balance, and fairness being challenged by new opportunities for journalistic production? What alternative norms are journalists using as an epistemological basis for their work? How do these norms differ across platforms, publications, and individuals? How are institutional newsrooms reacting to and incorporating new norms of information production? 

The media industry will continue to evolve, and journalists will continue to experiment with new tools, ideas, and career paths. While each development brings challenges, unanticipated impacts, and controversies, the journalists in our study remain committed to their work. Some even find hope within the complexity and failure of these supposed media solutions. As one reporter remarks: “It’s good a lot of people are experimenting… the industry is now being fully shaken up.”

Appendix A: Interview Demographics

Table 1: Respondent Demographic Characteristics. *Includes Latinx, East Asian, South Asian, Black, Middle Eastern, North African, and mixed-race respondents

About the Tow Center

The Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism, a partner of CJR, is a research center exploring the ways in which technology is changing journalism, its practice and its consumption — as we seek new ways to judge the reliability, standards, and credibility of information online.

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Case Study UT Star Icon

Sports Blogs: The Wild West of Sports Journalism?

Deadspin pays an anonymous source for information related to NFL star Brett Favre, sparking debate over the ethics of “checkbook journalism.”

This case study examines controversial reporting by the sports blog Deadspin over a personal misconduct case involving NFL star Brett Favre. It highlights current debates surrounding the ethics of sports blogging as illustrated by the issue of paying sources for information, i.e. “checkbook journalism.”

The full case study, discussion questions, and additional resources can be accessed through the link below, which will open a new tab at The Texas Program in Sports & Media (TPSM) website.

TPSM Case Study: Sports Blogs: The Wild West of Sports Journalism?

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Misinformation & Fake News

• Getting Started

Practice: Case Studies

Widely shared fake news stories from 2020-23, widely shared fake news stories from 2016-18, fake news exercise.

• Types of Misinformation
• Legitimate News Sources
• Books & Articles
• Video Resources
• Other Resources
• Case Study 1
• Case Study 1 - Explained
• Case Study 2
• Case Study 2 - Explained

On August 20, 2022, a TikTok video was posted, claiming that Disney World was going to lower the drinking age to 18. It was stated that Disney World was battling the Florida government in court to get a resort exemption, which would allow anyone 18 and older to drink on property. The TikTok video acquired millions of views in just a couple days. This story was also posted on facebook, instagram, and Twitter. Shortly after, the story made it on ABC 10 News.

The video originated from an article posted on a blog called Mouse Trap News. Small segment of the original article below. Full article can be found here: "Drinking Age at Disney World May be Lowered to 18".

The Claim: Walt Disney Company was seeking a resort exemption to lower the drinking age to 18 years old, in Disney World, Florida.

To find the truth about this story, we will use Michael Caufield's  Four Moves and a Habit. 

1. Check for previous work: For this case, we looked up this claim on  Snopes ( fact checking resource ). They published an article on the story and labeled it as fake news satire. It was also aired on ABC 10 News, on their fact or fiction  segment, where it was determined to be fiction. The news segment can be viewed  here .

2. Go upstream to the source:  The TikTok video originally came from an article published by the same TikTok user, @mousetrapnews. They have their own webpage dedicated to news stories about disneyland parks.  The original article claimed that Disney was battling Florida in the courts over the minimum drinking age, but no evidence such as sources or court filings are mentioned.

3. Read laterally: Upon further exploration of the site itself, their  About  page actually bluntly admits that they only write fake stories about Disney Parks (see picture below).

4. Circle back: If we go back to the main article explaining the story, it reads in the description an explanation of the National Minimum Drinking Age Act passed by congress and signed into law by President Reagan. The article then asks the reader a question "Didn’t think you would get a history lesson from us, did you?" and "Now that we have set up the act, we have some Disney news to go with it.", these playful comments already makes the story a little suspicious. We can also check another form of social media the user has. They also had an Instagram account, where they state "Real Disney News That is 100% Fake" and "The Onion Of Disney News".

 Interestingly enough, many of the Mouse Trap News fake news stories have been featured on different news websites and shows, such as The Associated Press, USA Today, and on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon .

The Conclusion: The Walt Disney Company did not seek a resort exemption to lower the drinking age to 18 years old, in Disney World, Florida.

In October 2020, posts on social media and articles were published claiming that a new CDC study found the Majority of those infected with COVID-19 ‘always’ wore Masks (examples of the articles below). This claim was further elevated on October 15, 2020, a town hall broadcast by NBC, interviewed U.S. President Donald Trump. During this interview Trump stated, " But just the other day, they came out with a statement that 85% of the people that wear masks catch it." Trump's source for this claim was the new study published by the CDC. Full transcription of this interview can be found  here.  This information was ultimately, misinterpreted. Below is the CDC's tweet addressing the misinformation.

The Claim: CDC reported that the majority of those infected with COVID-19 ‘always’ wore masks.

• Check for previous work:  For this case, we looked up this claim on  Snopes and FactCheck.org ( fake news fact checker ). Both resources claim the information as false and misleading.
• Go upstream to the source:  The claim originated from a study published by the CDC titled,  Community and Close Contact Exposures Associated with COVID-19 Among Symptomatic Adults ≥18 Years in 11 Outpatient Health Care Facilities.   This study examined how SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, may be transmitted both within communities and between close contacts. While Trump used the correct percentage from the study, the data was misinterpreted. The study reported that 85 percent had reported wearing masks always or often. The study also found that for those in the group who had tested negative, 89 percent had reported wearing masks with the same frequency. The CDC pointed out that "People w/ and w/o COVID19 had high levels of mask use in public. Even for those who always wear a mask, there are activities where masks can’t be worn, like eating or drinking. People w/ COVID-19 were more likely to have eaten in a restaurant." The study noted, "Exposures and activities where mask use and social distancing are difficult to maintain, including going to locations that offer on-site eating and drinking, might be important risk factors for SARS-CoV-2 infection."
• Read laterally: The claim is challenging the notion that wearing a mask is not effective at preventing the spread of COVID-19. We have to take in consideration that this study was investigating mask wearing in community activities. CDC's website provides Science Briefs  which is a summary of the scientific evidence used to inform specific CDC guidance and recommendations. In one  brief , they state, "individual prevention benefit increases with increasing numbers of people using masks consistently and correctly." So, the people from the original study might have not been using their masks effectively if repeatedly taking them off in social settings. Other medical experts such as Dr. Anthony Fauci, states "Masks aren't perfect. They help, but they're not a guarantee that you're not going to get Covid if you wear a mask”.  
• Circle back:  If you find yourself getting overwhelmed by other sources on the claim, circle back to the claim and investigate the background of that source. Using the  AllSides Media Bias Chart , we can see that  The Federalist  is listed on the very, far right side of the chart. The author of that article, Jordan Boyd, has her twitter page linked to her name and we can see that her posts are on the far right of the political spectrum. The  California Globe  is listed as a conservative leaning publication on  Snopes,  many of their other posts written by the author lean to the right of the political spectrum. You can also circle back to the original study the claims were based on and question the accurateness. One issue with the study is the data was self-reported through phone surveys. So, people could have inaccurately reported mask use since there was no video monitoring to confirm. 

Check Your Emotions:  The use of masks and its effectiveness against COVID-19 was a highly politicized topic when the pandemic started. By downplaying the severity of the virus (despite all the losses recorded by the CDC), President Trump's attitude about the pandemic and the use of masks contributed the view that the COVID-19 public health crisis should be viewed as a political issue.

Conclusion: The CDC did not report that the majority of those infected with COVID-19 ‘always’ wore masks.

For more examples on COVID-19 myths and using Michael Caufield's  Four Moves and a Habit to fact check them, visit our   COVID Vaccines Libguide.

• Jan. 6 Capitol Riot
• COVID-19 and Vit. C
• Adrenochrome Shipment
• RNA in Chicken Feed

The Claim: The U.S. Capitol police gave the protesters an "okay" to enter the Capitol.

• Check for previous work: For this claim, we looked up this claim on Factcheck.org  (fake news fact checker). Factcheck.org debunks the story here.
• Go upstream to the source: this claim originated from a video clip that was posted all over social media. This video clip was posted by a group of Trump supporters who attacked the United States Capitol Building in Washington, D.C., after U.S. President Donald Trump did not win the 2020 presidential election, on January 6, 2021. They uploaded a video where shows a police officer “appears to tell” the group that they wouldn't stop them from entering the building. However, nowhere in the video does the police make that claim. A fake news website called, The Gateway Pundit, reported the same claim on Facebook and Instagram. Even a radio show in Texas called “Walton & Johnson,” ran a similar headline.
• Read laterally: the next step would be to see what others are saying about this claim. In this case we should look at what the police officers in this video clip said about the incident. US Capitol police officers said in an email statement to factcheck.org , that the officers were blocking the whole way and attempting to de-escalate the situation by telling the crowd to not attack or assault and to remain calm. The Justice Department reported that about 140 police officers were assaulted that day.
• Circle back: If you find yourself, getting overwhelmed by other sources on the claim, circle back and investigate the background of that source. If we look back to the actual incident on January 6, 2021, we know from ample public evidence released by the FBI showed Trump supporters violently assaulting officers at the Capitol. Other shown footage included Trump supporters breaking through a metal barrier outside the capital and breaking windows of the building to enter.

Conclusion: The U.S. Capitol police never gave protestors permission to enter the Capitol.

The Claim: High doses of vitamin C can cure COVID-19.

• Check for previous work: Throughout the year 2020, many websites and social media posts were claiming how high doses of vitamin C could cure and/or be an effective treatment for COVID-19. For this case, we looked up this claim on Snopes (fact checkering source) which they claim the information as false and misleading.
• Go upstream to the source: These claims stemmed from multiple studies detailing how vitamin C can help support the bodies immune system. According to Harvard Health Publishing , vitamin C has some marginal benefits for the common cold, such as reducing the duration of symptoms, if it is taken before catching a cold. Those benefits can be achieved with a diet that includes 200 milligrams of vitamin C, which is easily obtainable with a daily diet that includes fruits and vegetables .
• Read laterally: To gain additional background on this claim, we can read multiple sources and this this case see if it has been tested in trials. The CDC ultimately reported that there was insufficient evidence for the panel to recommend either for or against vitamin C for the treatment of COVID-19 and non-hospitalized patients. Most of the trials had a limitation such as small sample sizes, study designs that had different doses or formulations of vitamin C and different outcome measures.
• Circle back: If you find yourself, getting overwhelmed by other sources on the claim, circle back to the claim, and investigate the background of that source. In this particular claim, there is some truth and vitamin C is good for your immunity. However, some of the hype around these claims came from unpublished sources, fake news, personal websites, and from "influencers" on social media. We can refer to the CDC website and peer review published articles about the relationship between COVID-19 and vitamin C. Clinical trials can be found on the ClinicalTrials.gov website.

Conclusion: doses of vitamin C are not a proven as an effective cure for COVID-19.

Claim: Putin intercepts adrenochrome shipment

1. Check for previous work: In this case if we looked for "adrenochrome putin shipment" to check for previous work, we would find that politifact.com already did a fact check on this story.

2. Go upstream to the source: This example is from Real Raw News . This website is known for fabricating stories; if that's information you knew coming into this evaluation, you would know this is an automatic red flag and we could stop here. However, if you didn't know that, you could make a few judgements about what other stories are on the page to get a sense of the angle and political bias for this news source. If you research Andrei Zakharov, whose name was used as a source of information, you'll find that he is a Russian journalist that works for the BBC Russian Service, not as Russian FSB Agent. As a story featuring adrenochrome and blood harvesting with a history of conspiracy theories behind it, you should already be skeptical. Looking up some of the facts in the story help us determine more about its truthiness.

3. Read laterally: Given what we've learned from steps 1 and 2, at this point in the evaluation we could stop our search, dismiss the story, and move on with our lives. However, if we aren't satisfied with what we found, out next step is to look for other stories about this issue. Are other reports of this story coming from reputable sources? Is the story reported elsewhere with the same facts? Are there discrepancies in what's being reported? This is the step where we need to be paying extra attention to who's publishing the story that corroborates this narrative. On the internet you can find pretty much anything you look for, but "anything" isn't always an accurate story to trust.

4. Circle back: There's plenty of facts within this story for us to investigate and check. However, we eventually want to come to a conclusion and circling back will bring us to the question of whether this story has any truth. Given what we've learned: no, this is not factual.

Check your Emotions: The habit we're practicing throughout is about checking our emotions. Do I want this story to be true? Does this story sound too outrageous to be true? Am I attached to what the truth about this story is one way or another?

The Claim: chickens are not laying eggs, because RNA is being added to commercial chicken feed.

• Check for previous work: For this case, we looked up this claim on politifact.com. This resource debunks it here.
• Go upstream to the source: The claim originated from a published research article titled, " Messenger RNA sequencing and pathway analysis provide novel insights into the biological basis of chickens’ feed efficiency. " This study aimed to characterize the biological basis of differences between chickens with low and high feed efficiency, with a long-term goal of improving the ability to select for feed efficiency. Nowhere in the article did it mention adding RNA to chicken feed. RNA sequencing was being used to see how differences in feed efficiency can be explained by what levels of RNA are produced by the chickens' cells.
• Read laterally: The next step would be to see what others are saying about this claim based on the article. PolitiFact actually did many email interviews with experts in the field, to talk about the claim. Multiple experts said commercial feed manufactures were not adding RNA to chicken feed, and that this claim was a misinterpretation of the data. The FDA also confirmed that RNA is not on its own, a feed additive. The articles cited from the original TikTok video are not relevant to the argument made in the video. The FDA also stated that there are many ways why a chicken's egg-laying behavior and quantity could change. They recommended consulting a licensed veterinarian, who can examine the animal and take a detailed medical and diet history.
• Circle back: If you find yourself, getting overwhelmed by other sources on the claim, circle back to the claim, and investigate the background of that source. The first thing one should question is how RNA is being referred to in the post. RNA stands for ribonucleic acid, which is a naturally occurring nucleic acid found in all living cells. So, the claim of adding synthetic RNA into commercial feed does not make any sense. Furthermore, a search can be done to confirm what common factors are affecting chicken egg laying. Common reasons listed were management practices, improper nutrition, parasite infection, disease, lighting, and stress.

Conclusion: RNA is not being added to commercial chicken feed.

• Trump Bills Michelle Obama
• "Pizzagate"
• Donald Trump Wins the Popular Vote
• Hillary's Health
• Muslims Demanding Handouts
• Burning Tipis at Standing Rock
• Student Desecrates Constitution

This example is from Before It's News; it's also featured on at least one other similarly fake website. The amounts supposedly owed by the Obamas are pretty unbelievable. Even if the presidential couple had indeed bought everything the article claims they did, the total would not come anywhere close to $11 billion, a figure equal to the GDP of a small country. It also includes some grammatical issues, and "eleventy" isn't a word.

It's also worth looking at the Before It's News site itself:

A few points:

• "Alternative," "Spirituality," and "Unexplained" are terms that one doesn't find among the tabs on any legitimate news site.
• No professional news organization lets just anyone "upload news."
• The presence of advertising, and the nature or quality of the products being advertised, is not a sound indicator of the site's reliability. Ads for Duracell batteries and Mapquest could quite conceivably show up in the margins of The Seattle Times ' website , for example. Newspapers, in both their print and online versions, generally cannot survive without ad revenue.
• This site deals heavily in sensationalist headlines (the ones underlined are just some of the most outrageous).

Among the most notorious fake news stories of 2016 was one alleging that Hillary Clinton was running a child-prostitution ring out of a Washington, D.C., pizzeria. This had real-world consequences for the employees of that pizzeria when an armed man decided to "self-investigate" the rumors, as described in  "Dissecting the #PizzaGate Conspiracy Theories,"  by Gregor Aisch, Jon Huang, and Cecilia Kang.

During the 2016 election, another persistent fake news story was that Donald Trump won both the popular vote and the electoral college vote. That Trump won the electoral college by a clear margin is undisputed. While the federal government did not release the official results of the popular vote until mid-2017, a great number of sources, ranging from the more conservative  The Wall Street Journal  to the more liberal  The New York Times reported Hillary Clinton winning the popular vote by margins ranging from approximately a million votes (on Nov. 9, 2016) to three million (NYT estimate as of Feb. 10, 2017).

During the 2016 presidential campaign, fake news sites circulated several stories alleging that Hillary Clinton was in poor health, the implication being that she was not fit enough for the rigors of the presidency. Fake news site 70News dedicated an entire section to these rumors, most of which were bolstered by photos or video clips showing Clinton in moments of apparent frailty or disorientation. This illustrates a common fake news tactic: the use of tidbits of truthful imagery to support exaggerated or unsubstantiated claims. Laura Mallonee writes about this phenomenon in " How Photos Fuel the Spread of Fake News ."

Not all fake news is geared toward a conservative audience; liberals may be just as quick to believe falsehoods that seem to confirm their hopes and fears. A February 2017 story run by Alternative Media Syndicate claimed that police forces arrayed against the pipeline protesters at the Standing Rock Indian Reservation raided and burned a protester camp, offering graphic imagery of flaming tipis as proof. This story is completely false; the image was taken from a 2007 HBO film, Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee . Snopes.com debunks the story here .

In February 2018, after surviving a shooting in which 17 of her schoolmates died, Florida teenager Emma Gonzalez became an outspoken proponent of gun control legislation. Not long after, imagery of her apparently tearing up a copy of the U.S. constitution went viral on right-wing websites. This imagery was doctored ; the originals came from a Teen Vogue photo shoot in which Gonzalez symbolically tore up a target sign. Photo manipulation is a time-honored propaganda tactic, but is now easier than ever thanks to Photoshop and other editing tools.

• Robert Amnor story

Work in groups of 3-5. Using any methods you can think of, try to determine whether the story is (a) false, (b) true, or (c) a mix of truth and falsehood. Go back to the home page of this guide if you need some direction on what to look for.

Discuss which (if any) of the fake news hallmarks from the first page of this guide are evident in this story.

• << Previous: Getting Started
• Next: Types of Misinformation >>
• Last Updated: Apr 16, 2024 12:19 PM
• URL: https://libguides.lib.cwu.edu/fakenews

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Open Access

Peer-reviewed

Research Article

Citizen journalism reduces the credibility deficit of authoritarian government in risk communication amid COVID-19 outbreaks

Contributed equally to this work with: Greg Chih-Hsin Sheen, Hans H. Tung, Wen-Chin Wu

Roles Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Visualization, Writing – original draft

Affiliation Department of Political Science, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan

Roles Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Methodology, Visualization, Writing – original draft

* E-mail: [email protected]

Affiliations Department of Political Science, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan, Center for Research in Econometric Theory and Applications, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan

Roles Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Methodology, Visualization, Writing – original draft

Affiliation Institute of Political Science, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan

• Greg Chih-Hsin Sheen, 
• Hans H. Tung, 
• Wen-Chin Wu

• Published: December 8, 2021
• https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0260961
• Reader Comments

During the outbreak of an epidemic, the success in risk communications to make the public comply with disease preventive measures depends on the public’s trust in the government. In this study, we aim to understand how media audiences update their trust in the government during the COVID-19 outbreak depending on the information they received. We conducted an online survey experiment in February 2020 in Hong Kong (n = 1,016) in which respondents were randomly provided with a government press release and an endorsement either from an official or a non-official source. This study shows that the information from a non-official source enhances the credibility of official government messages. Our findings imply that dictators can actually “borrow credibility” from their citizen journalists and even nondemocratic leaders can make themselves more trustworthy to potential dissenters through citizen journalism. Allowing information flow from non-official sources can be a practical measure for governments to address the problem of a credibility deficit during a pandemic.

Citation: Sheen GC-H, Tung HH, Wu W-C (2021) Citizen journalism reduces the credibility deficit of authoritarian government in risk communication amid COVID-19 outbreaks. PLoS ONE 16(12): e0260961. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0260961

Editor: Marcelo Hermes-Lima, Universidade de Brasilia, BRAZIL

Received: June 21, 2021; Accepted: November 19, 2021; Published: December 8, 2021

Copyright: © 2021 Sheen et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Data Availability: The datasets collected and analyzed in the reported studies are available on the Open Science Framework: https://osf.io/e89kr/ (DOI: 10.17605/OSF.IO/D3WHC ).

Funding: Support for this research was provided by the Ministry of Education (Taiwan, ROC, 109L900203) and the Ministry of Science and Technology (Taiwan, ROC, MOST 109-2634-F-002-045) to HHT. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Introduction

Can the trust in an authoritarian government be enhanced by endorsements from an independent source? The extant literature has documented various kinds of endorsement effects. In a democratic context, the endorsements from less biased newspapers win candidates more support from voters [ 1 ], and those made by celebrities also make them look more viable in electoral competition [ 2 ]. In a far more extreme scenario of civil wars, the outgroup leader endorsements for a peace settlement are found to work adversely on its public support [ 3 ]. Yet little is known if such an effect also exists in an authoritarian context. A related study [ 4 ] shows experimentally that the Chinese government can only rebut rumors and regain people’s trust in it when the rebuttals are endorsed by the public figures widely perceived to be independent. This study tries to enrich this literature on political endorsements under dictatorships by taking advantage of a narrow window of opportunity to conduct a survey experiment in Hong Kong (henceforth HK) during China’s COVID-19 outbreak. The timeliness of this research makes its findings less artificial since the informational environment and treatments administered in the experiments were real and vital to respondents’ lives amid the pandemic. Moreover, coupled with [ 4 ] in which the focus is more on how an authoritarian government reactively defends itself against rumors, this study further expands our understanding of the endorsements under dictatorships by analyzing how it can proactively persuade citizens of the credibility of its policies.

Specifically, our survey experiment finds that an authoritarian leader can actually “borrow credibility” from citizen journalist endorsements during a public health incident. Moreover, our findings also reveal that the effect is especially salient on those critical citizens who used to participate in HK’s 2019 Anti-Extradition Protest and favor media freedom in China. This implies that even nondemocratic leaders can make themselves more trustworthy to potential dissenters through citizen journalism.

In the current international endeavor for guarding global health against COVID-19, the role played by political systems has been placed under the spotlight. As the March 7 Lancet editorial [ 5 ] points out, China’s special “command-and-control political economy” in fighting the virus is absent in other nations, among which many are nondemocratic. And yet, their weaker authoritarian governments still will necessarily face the challenge during the global contagion. In other words, with less power and coercive apparatus than their Chinese counterpart, these governments’ ability to conduct risk communications in shaping the risk perceptions in their societies and instructing their citizens to adopt certain preventive measures such as social distancing and self-isolation becomes imperative during the current pandemic outbreak [ 6 ].

The success in risk communications to make the public comply with disease preventive measures has been found to be positively correlated with the trust in government [ 7 – 9 ]. More specifically, when it comes to the information distributed by the government, such trust often hinges on the credibility of its sources [ 10 – 12 ]. This is especially so when the information receivers, i.e. the public, do not possess adequate expertise in understanding technical details of the diseases, e.g., infection statistics and the effectiveness of vaccination [ 13 ]. However, an authoritarian government’s institutional incentive and capacity to manipulate information often make the public have little trust in its policy announcements and propaganda, even when it sincerely wants to open up and share truthful information with its citizens. For example, while some global health officials praised China’s authoritarian system for its prompt and forceful response to lock down the infected cities, the death of one of the eight arrested whistle-blowers in Wuhan, Dr. Li Wenliang, nonetheless reminded people that the outbreak could have been prevented if their voices were not censored by the local authority at the early stage when there were only a few local infections. Moreover, in addition to the problem in the internal transmission of information, an authoritarian government might also find its fragility in making its policies credible to the society it governs. The official notice of Wuhan’s lockdown on January 23 left an eight-hour window for people to decide whether they would leave or stay. According to Wuhan’s mayor, roughly 5 million Wuhan residents escaped from the city before it was actually enforced [ 14 ]. Furthermore, immediately after the lockdown, a second notice was issued to guarantee the sufficient supply of daily necessities and medical resources within the city. Nonetheless, it did not stop people from hoarding and trying their best to leave the city [ 15 ]. These incidents showed that the lack of the liberty of expression to health workers and media outlets might not only make an authoritarian government lose the opportunity to contain the virus ex ante, but also weaken its policy to stop its spread ex post.

Such a credibility deficit, therefore, presents a grave challenge to the ongoing global efforts in containing the coronavirus in countries with nondemocratic political systems. In fact, many experts have suggested that granting liberty of expression to citizens and journalists in authoritarian systems would be a solution [ 16 ]. In particular, since the public trust in the conventional media, which are usually viewed as government propaganda mouthpieces, tends to be low in authoritarian countries [ 17 ], a feasible solution to the authoritarian credibility deficit during a public health exigency should lie somewhere else: citizen journalism as an independent source.

There are three critical reasons for why citizen journalism is a good instrument for studying the endorsement effect under dictatorships. First of all, even in an authoritarian context where some kind of censorship is often imposed, citizen journalism has been found to liberate ordinary people from the government propaganda through providing alternative information [ 18 , 19 ]. Second, it is also found that, unlike professional reporters, citizen journalists are less dependent on official and organizational sources for their reports [ 20 ], and therefore enjoy a higher level of independence from the government’s information manipulation. Finally, the susceptibility of citizen journalism to the government censorship (e.g., “frictions”) in China [ 21 ] might also raise its perceived independence among citizens. The perception may well arise from the simple fact that there is no reason for the government to censor citizen journalists’ reports if they are closely aligned with the official lines or citizen journalists can be co-opted. Based on these theoretical accounts, we hypothesize that citizen journalism endorsements can reduce the credibility deficit in public health governance and facilitate risk communications in authoritarian countries.

We conducted an online survey experiment (n = 1,016) in HK between February 13 and 17, 2020. It was right after the Chinese government confirmed more than 15,000 cases on February 12 alone due to a change in the diagnostic criteria. The survey questionnaire consists of four sections: Pre-experiment questions, Experiment 1, Experiment 2, and Post-experiment questions (Please see Supplemental Information H in S1 File for our complete questionnaire.). Experiments 1 and 2 were randomly ordered. In the pre-treatment section, we asked respondents questions such as their disease prevention knowledge and behavior, views on media freedom, participation in the 2019 HK anti-extradition protests, and knowledge about Chen Qiushi (henceforth CQ), a lawyer-turned-citizen reporter from mainland China. He was known by many HK citizens for his Youtube clips sympathizing with the anti-extradition protests. Among those who have heard of him, some considered him an independent and trustworthy journalist, while others viewed him as an agent of the Communist Party for manipulating HK’s public opinion in its favor. We leveraged this variation for checking if our manipulation worked. To avoid respondent fatigue, we left questions about demographic details and other information unaffected by the treatments in the post-treatment section.

Experiment 1 was designed to test the causal effect of the citizen journalism endorsement on the government news credibility. Subjects were first provided with a real press release about Wuhan’s ample supply of life essentials issued by China’s Ministry of Commerce (henceforth MoC). Then they were randomly presented with a MoC-endorsing montage screenshot taken from an online video report made either by the People’s Daily Online (henceforth PD) or CQ right after Wuhan’s lockdown. PD’s Online video (published on January 26, 2019, on v.eople.cn) is available at http://tiny.cc/fgxkkz and the screenshots were taken at the 0:33 and the 0:43 marks of the video. There was also a brief preamble introducing them: “Right the next day (January 26) after the Ministry of Commerce issued the press release, [a reporter from China’s official media outlet, People’s Daily Online,] visited a supermarket in Wuhan to do a live stream report on the shopping activities there. Here is a picture from the visit:.” The caption in the photo reads: “A People’s Daily Online journalist is visiting a supermarket in Wuhan: There is a sufficient supply of goods; Citizens are buying things in an orderly fashion.” (the 0:33 mark). The bracketed phrase indicated the information source (i.e., an official media outlet) to the respondents in this group. Alternatively, Chen Qiushi’s video (published on January 26, 2019, on Youtube) is available at http://youtu.be/KNLlYwTnY3E and the screenshots were taken at the 0:30 and the 1:42 marks of the video. As in the PD group, the same preamble except for the information source was also shown to introduce them: “Right the next day (January 26) after the Ministry of Commerce issued the press release, [a citizen journalist, Chen Qiushi,] visited a supermarket in Wuhan to do a live stream report on the shopping activities there. Here is a picture from the visit:.” The captions in the photo read “Other places are basically empty. All people are pretty much gathering here in the section for vegetables, fruits, and meats.” (the 0:30 mark) and “Hmm, there is also tons of rice.” (the 1:42 mark). In contrast, the bracketed phrase for this group indicated a non-official information source.

While both displayed a similar image of sufficient food for sale at a local supermarket in Wuhan, they differed starkly in the source —an official media outlet versus a citizen journalist. What should be noted here is that, owing to concerns over copyrights and personality rights of those who appeared in the screenshots, the screenshots are not shown in the published version of the paper, but available upon request.

All the information presented in this experiment is genuine. Before the experiment, we verified that both screenshots echoed MoC’s press release and were comparable to each other by consulting our colleagues. During the design stage of the survey, we shared the draft of the questionnaire to our colleagues at the following institutions: Academia Sinica, London School of Economics, National Taiwan University, New York University Abu Dhabi, the University at Buffalo, and the University of Washington. Overall we consulted 9 colleagues and asked them to comment on, in particular, whether the screenshots we used for both treatment and control groups were comparable to each other. All of them agreed with us about the comparability. After showing the screenshots to respondents, we asked them to rate the credibility of MoC’s press release and that of either PD’s or CQ’s report. We hypothesized that, because PD was a government mouthpiece and CQ was a non-official source viewed by many as independent, the rating should be higher when the press release was endorsed by CQ than by PD. Experiment 2 was designed to investigate whether mentioning an expert’s government-sponsored title would make his/her opinion more or less credible. To save space, we report its empirical results in ( S2 Fig ).

Materials and methods

We conducted an online survey experiment in HK between February 13 and 17, 2020. The experiment design obtained Institutional Review Board approval at New York University Abu Dhabi (HRPP-2020–15) on February 3, 2020. With the gender and the age quotas derived from the 2018 Population and Household Statistics published by the HK government, a total of 1,016 respondents (aged 18 to 80) were recruited through the proportional quota sampling by the Rakuten Insight Global, an international survey company. What is worth noting here is that a common feature of online surveys is over-representation of highly educated respondents. Our respondents also reported higher educational levels (approximately 65% have a university or above educational level) than the general population (approximately 33%). However, this is less of an issue for our study since the main instrument of our research, citizen journalism, replies heavily on online publications [ 20 ] and its influence will certainly concentrate more on the population with a higher level of education.

Moreover, a power analysis was conducted to decide our sample size. Our goal was to obtain 0.90 power to detect an effect size of 0.3 at the 0.001 alpha error probability. This analysis yielded a sample size of 930 with 465 participants in each group, and we recruited slightly more participants than the suggested amount. Apart from the demographic questions, to minimize the possibility that inattentive responses may impair data quality, choices of all the other ones were randomized. Overall, there are 47 questions in the questionnaire. The ex ante estimated completion time is 10 minutes. The average completion time of our data is 12 minutes. Please see S1 File for further details about our participant recruitment and human subjects protection. We chose HK to conduct this experiment since it’s a part of China that still enjoyed partial media freedom, and its citizens were more experienced in detecting government propaganda. In other words, if exposing them to our informational treatment did induce an endorsement effect on a government announcement, then it should be easier to observe such an effect among other less sophisticated respondents. Moreover, since HK citizens were less likely to have a very concrete idea about Wuhan’s lockdown when our experiment was administered, they would also be more responsive to our experimental manipulations.

Vignettes and questions of Experiment 1

The government press release was presented as follows:

The Novel Coronavirus Pneumonia is spreading. At the moment of announcing the lockdown of the city of Wuhan, the Ministry of Commerce, People’s Republic of China issued a press release titled “The commerce department of Hubei is making all efforts to ensure the sufficient supplies of life essentials,” including the following statement: “On January 24, the city of Wuhan is supplied with sufficient life essentials, and the price of vegetables also decreased. The commerce department of Hubei is making all efforts to ensure the sufficient supplies of life essentials. First, the government will supply the essentials for Lunar New Year celebrations at markets. 1.55 million kilograms of eggs, 5 million kilograms of vegetables, 1 million kilograms of fish, 0.2 million kilograms of beef and 6000 heads of pigs will be distributed across 300 stations. Starting January 21, 0.5 million kilograms of frozen pork have also been distributed in cooperation with the Development Department. Second, to ensure the normal operation of retailing businesses in Wuhan, we ask all supermarkets, pharmacies, and gas stations to continue their operations during the period of Lunar New Year and increase their stocks. Third, all vegetables and meats will be shipped into Wuhan through the 24-hour Green Lane, to ensure smooth transportation. Fourth, we will continuously inspect the market supplies of life essentials and address any issues immediately.”

The Screenshots used in this experiment were then shown to respondents and the sources were:

• Press release from the Ministry of Commerce of the People’s Republic of China (published on January 25, 2019) http://www.mofcom.gov.cn/article/jiguanzx/202001/20200102932965.shtml
• Chen Qiushi’s video (published on January 26, 2019, on Youtube) http://youtu.be/KNLlYwTnY3E
• People’s Daily Online video (published on January 26, 2019, on v.eople.cn) http://tiny.cc/fgxkkz

The survey questions included:

• Do you believe in the Ministry of Commerce’s press release? Rate it on a scale from 0 to 100. A larger number indicates higher level of trust.
• Do you believe that the report by Chen Qiushi faithfully reflected the situation in Wuhan? Rate it on a scale from 0 to 100. A larger number indicates higher level of trust.
• Do you believe that the report by the People’s Daily Online faithfully reflected the situation in Wuhan? Rate it on a scale from 0 to 100. A larger number indicates higher level of trust.

Hypothesis and vignettes of Experiment 2

Experiment 2 was designed to investigate whether an expert opinion with or without mentioning the expert’s government-related title had a different level of credibility. We studied this using a vignette quoted from a Hong Kong newspaper. In the news piece, the expert cited, Dr. Li Xingwang, was presented as “a member of the National Medical Expert Committee and Chief Expert at Clinical and Research Center of Infectious Diseases, Beijing Ditan Hospital.” We randomly provided the respondents with the vignette that included or excluded the statement that Dr. Li was a member of National Medical Expert Committee. Then we asked respondents to rate their trust in Dr. Li’s statement. Our aim was to investigate how Dr. Li’s opinion was considered as more or less credible depending on whether or not his government-related title was cited. Being included on the government expert committee, on the one hand, reflects that his expertise is highly regarded. On the other hand, however, it also means that he may be incentivized to align more closely to the government. Hence, his opinion may not be considered as purely neutral and science-based. Accordingly, we tested the following hypothesis:

The mean perceived credibility of Dr. Li’s opinion differs between the group of respondents who read the vignette with his government-related title and the group who read the vignette without the title.

Dr. Li Xingwang, [a member of the National Medical Expert Committee and] Chief Expert at Clinical and Research Center of Infectious Diseases, Beijing Ditan Hospital, suggests that, as the virus starts to spread nationwide, there are many infected cases all over the country. Some contagious patients may display no symptoms but are later tested positive. Some others will show no obvious fever but sometimes cough, and feel fatigue. “These kinds of patients are also contagious. However, as the virus is spread by droplets, and those with mild illness tend to show fewer cough symptoms… the transmission ability might not be that strong,” said Dr. Li.

The source of news is HK01 (a Hong-Kong-based online newspaper) http://tiny.cc/0mskkz , and we asked the following question:

Do you believe in the opinion of Dr. Li Xingwang, [a member of the National Medical Expert Committee and] Chief Expert at Clinical and Research Center of Infectious Diseases, Beijing Ditan Hospital? Rate it on a scale from 0 to 100. A larger number indicates higher level of trust.

We used two-tailed t-tests to perform randomization checks. As reported in S1 and S2 Tables in S1 File , the p-values of these t-tests indicate that the group differences are insignificant in our two experiments, except for the gender in Experiment 2. We however would like to note that although randomization checks are widely used for assessing whether a random assignment is conducted properly, it is still controversial if this practice can really fulfill its promise [ 22 ]. The average treatment effects of major interest include (1) the difference in the perceived credibility of the government press release between the group receiving the government-endorsing information from a state-owned media outlet and that receiving the similar information from a citizen reporter, and (2) the difference in the perceived credibility of a medical expert’s statement with or without his government-sponsored title mentioned. We also ran OLS regression and linear interaction models for estimating heterogeneous treatment effects.

We found that the exposure to independent citizen journalism increased respondents’ trust in the government press release. A two-tailed t-test shows that the respondents who read CQ’s report gave higher ratings of credibility to MoC’s press release than those who read the PD report (45.98 versus 42.85, the difference is 3.13, two-sided p-value = 0.07, see Fig 1A ). More generally, we also found that, across all levels of the government, the general trust in them correlated positively with respondents’ perceived transparency of information concerning the outbreak ( Fig 1B ).

• PPT PowerPoint slide
• PNG larger image
• TIFF original image

Trust in government press release after reading news from different sources (A), and government transparency in disease information and trust in government (B).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0260961.g001

To further explore the heterogeneous effects of independent citizen journalism on reducing the authoritarian credibility deficit, we estimated several linear regression models including respondents’ demographics and virus-related variables (see S3-S5 Tables in S1 File for details). There was substantial evidence showing that the identified causal effect was driven by the respondents who were more critical. First, tapping into HK’s recent critical event, the 2019 anti-extradition protests, we found CQ’s report induced a greater trust on MoC’s press release among protest participants than among non-participants ( Fig 2A , 42.88 versus 35.01, the difference is 7.87, p = 0.003). Moreover, as the majority of protesters were relatively young, it’s therefore also worthwhile to investigate the causal heterogeneity across different age groups (18–80 in our sample). Just like the analysis on protest participation, we did find statistically significant and larger independent treatment effects among relatively younger (24–52) participants ( S3 Fig ). Please see section G in S1 File for details. Similarly, those who heard of CQ and favored media freedom in mainland China also showed a higher trust in the government press release after reading CQ’s report ( Fig 2B , 48.34 versus 41.90, the difference is 6.44, p = 0.001; Fig 2C , 45.17 versus 39.60, the difference is 5.57, p = 0.002).

Social movement Participation and trust in government press release (A), previous awareness of CQ and trust in government press release (B), and support for media freedom, information sources, and trust in government press release (C).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0260961.g002

Finally, the manipulation checks are also consistent with our expectations. Respondents showed higher levels of trust in government press release as they perceived CQ to be an independent reporter (46.87, p < 0.001, see Fig 3A ). Similarly, compared to the credibility of PD report, on average, respondents rated CQ’s report with a higher level of trust (44.09 versus 53.36, the difference is 9.27, p < 0.001, see Fig 3B ).

CQ’s independence and trust in government press release (A), and trust in different sources of information (B).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0260961.g003

Our study shows that, during a public health crisis, the credibility deficit of an authoritarian government can be substantially reduced by citizen journalism. Such an effect is especially salient among those citizens who are critical of the government. We draw four conclusions from our analysis.

First, as the number of newly confirmed cases has gradually flattened out in China and went up elsewhere, it has become the global priority to find a practical solution to reducing credibility deficit in risk communications in other authoritarian countries without China’s administrative capacity. The observed effects of citizen journalism from our experiment were moderate yet meaningful. What is worth mentioning here is that the effects of our informational treatments might be moderated by the fact that, given Hong Kong’s free internet and media environment, our respondents also had low-cost access to other information sources regarding Wuhan’s local conditions that might neutralize CQ’s reports. This informational decentralization can also help account for why the government-related title in our second experiment was unable to induce any difference in respondents’ trust in medical experts since they did not need to rely on government sources for information. This is especially worth noting since the effects were triggered simply by a brief visual treatment. More importantly, while the effects of risk communications tend to be dwarfed by those exerted by preventative measures themselves, they can still be quite substantial in absolute numbers on a population level [ 23 , 24 ].

Second, the effect is also strengthened by the finding that, even in an authoritarian country, one will trust the government more when his/her perceived government transparency in handling the outbreak is higher ( Fig 1B ). The fact that the effect is significant across all levels of government suggests that citizen journalism can help an authoritarian government enhance its credibility in both central decision-making and local implementation of public health policies.

Third, besides showing the average causal effect of independent citizen journalism in an authoritarian context, our research also unpacks several mechanisms driving it. Actually, one might wonder if our results were mainly driven by the regime’s loyal supporters. If this is the case, lifting the restrictions on citizen journalism probably won’t help an authoritarian government much in reducing its credibility deficit since loyalists would support it anyway. Moreover, there have also been various studies showing how destabilizing public health hazards can be to authoritarian countries [ 25 , 26 ], and a sudden removal of censorship might give potential rebels opportunities to mobilize and paralyze their governments’ ability to deal with such crises [ 27 ].

Our findings, by contrast, suggest otherwise and therefore should send a soothing message to authoritarian leaders who are facing the COVID-19 challenge. According to our analysis of causal heterogeneities, while the respondents who were participants of anti-extradition protests and supporters of media freedom in China had lower trust in the government press release to begin with, these potential dissidents however, upwardly adjusted their trust in it significantly more than their not-so-critical counterparts when they received the government-endorsing information from a non-official source. In other words, there can actually be a virtuous cycle between citizen journalism and government credibility under dictatorships.

Fourth, our results also have a profound implication for the state-society synergy in public health governance under authoritarian regimes. It has been well-established in the literature that social capital can not only help authoritarian governments provide more local public goods [ 28 ], but also promote better public health [ 29 – 31 ]. Our results offer yet another piece of evidence for how having a vibrant civil society where independent citizen journalism is able to thrive can reduce dictators’ credibility deficit during an epidemic outbreak.

Our study, however, has one major limitation. We only showed our respondents the kind of citizen reports that endorsed the government press release. We were constrained to identify one of CQ’s reports that could be juxtaposed symmetrically with a government press release related to the outbreak. Unfortunately, because CQ stopped twittering in early February, his January clip on the food supply at one of Wuhan’s supermarkets was the only one that qualified (What has to be emphasized here is that our experiment was administered after CQ disappeared from the public sight.). Does this affect CQ’s perceived credibility as an independent source and therefore undermine our argument? Fortunately, this issue is partially addressed by the effect of CQ’s independence we found ( Fig 3A ). Since the independence in citizen journalism implies that one’s reports won’t be always endorsing but also critical, counter-factually, this finding suggests that the endorsement effect is unlikely to disappear even when citizen journalists’ reports contradict the government’s announcements. In other words, even if we were only able to present CQ’s endorsement of the government policy, our respondents didn’t regard him as simply a mouthpiece.

In this race against the spread of the virus, our study shows that allowing some level of free flow of information can be a practical way for authoritarian governments that suffer from credibility deficit to improve public trust in their risk communications and induce people’s cooperative behavior in containing the contagion during the current pandemic outbreak.

Concluding remarks

The effects of citizen journalism on non-democratic regimes’ credibility deficit in risk communication during public health crises are only partially understood. In general, the traditional model of risk communication stresses the importance of facilitating the transmission of information from authoritative/official sources. Citizen journalism is, therefore, viewed as a positive factor that can not only provide more information that is inaccessible to government sources, but also proactively engage those who are affected to shape their risk perceptions. In the authoritarian context where some kind of censorship is often imposed, citizen journalism has been found to liberate people from propaganda through providing alternative information and aggravate dictators’ credibility deficit. However, little is known if citizen journalism in a dictatorship can conversely work in tandem with its authoritarian government to enhance the effectiveness of risk communications during a public health crisis.

To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to confirm the positive effect of citizen journalism on reducing the credibility deficit in public health governance in authoritarian countries. First of all, we took advantage of a narrow window of opportunity to conduct a survey experiment in Hong Kong during China’s COVID-19 outbreak. The timely research makes our findings less artificial and closer to reality. Second, compared to the previous study, we show that a citizen journalist’s report can enhance the credibility of dictatorships. Third, in addition to the average causal effect of citizen journalism on authoritarian credibility in risk communications during a public health crisis, our findings also reveal that the effect is especially salient on those critical citizens who used to participate in Hong Kong’s 2019 Anti-Extradition Protest and favor media freedom in China.

The study shows that authoritarian leaders can “borrow credibility” from citizen journalists during a public health incident. Granting citizens freedom of speech can make authoritarian regimes more, instead of less, credible. This implies that there can actually be a synergy between state and society in a dictatorship. Given our finding that critical citizens also tend to be more responsive to reports made by citizen journalists, it implies that even nondemocratic leaders can make themselves more trustworthy to potential dissenters through citizen journalism. Moreover, the kind of experimental manipulation our participants were exposed to was not simply about some generic information about COVID-19, but about an actual policy measure that might affect people’s behavior in real-life scenarios. This also renders our findings readily applicable to actual anti-virus campaigns in other authoritarian countries. Finally, based on our findings, we also open up a new avenue for future researchers to explore various ways in which authoritarian governments are able to reduce their credibility deficit. Especially, the conventional wisdom tends to focus on how international institutions can make them more trustworthy to foreign actors such as multinational companies and investors. Our study shows alternatively how they can also gain additional credibility by tapping into civil society groups for sources of independence. Future research therefore can explore other domestic actors and issues areas to enrich our understanding of “dictators’ credibility borrowing”.

Supporting information

S1 fig. the informed consent page..

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0260961.s001

S2 Fig. Government title and credibility of a medical expert.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0260961.s002

S3 Fig. Age and heterogeneous treatment effects.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0260961.s003

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0260961.s004

Acknowledgments

We thank Joan Barcelo, Alexandra Blackman, Yaoyao Dai, Kiwi Ting, and Rebecca Morton for their invaluable comments. We also appreciate the feedback from the seminar/conference participants at the Institute of Political Science, Academic Sinica, and the 2020 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association. All remaining errors are the authors’ responsibility.

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I ndependent Media strongly condemns the unethical and biased research practices evident in a recent report on the online harassment faced by journalists working for the Daily Maverick. The International Centre for Journalists (ICFJ) report, titled "The women journalists of South Africa's Daily Maverick: SEXUALIZED, SILENCED AND LABELED SATAN," makes false and defamatory allegations about Independent Media without any substantiation or opportunity for response.

In a blatant violation of basic research ethics, the report, which was ostensibly about the abuse faced by Daily Maverick journalists, deviated from its primary focus and singled out Independent Media for criticism, implicating our company in alleged attacks on journalists. These claims are utterly baseless and untrue. Independent Media has never condoned or engaged in the harassment of journalists. In fact, our own journalists, particularly women, have themselves been victims of such harassment.

Given the well-known hostile relations between Daily Maverick and Independent Media, the critique of Independent Media within a report focusing on Daily Maverick journalists is patently biased. While discussing the broader media environment can provide context, the focus on Independent Media raises serious questions about the impartiality of the researchers and the necessity of including our company in this particular study.

It is deeply disappointing that Prof. Julie Reid, Prof. Julie Posetti, Dr. Diana Maynard, Nabeelah Shabbir, and Don Kevin Hapal have chosen to weaponise this report as a propaganda tool, rather than contributing to a constructive dialogue on the critical issue of journalist abuse. The conduct of the ICFJ and its researchers is highly unethical, particularly the unnecessary invocation of our company's name when it is not directly relevant to the study.

We demand an immediate retraction of all claims made about Independent Media in the report, as well as a public apology to our journalists who have been unfairly maligned by association. The report's authors and affiliated institutions must clarify why Independent Media was inappropriately invoked in a study purportedly focused on a competing media company. They must also disclose any conflicts of interest, funding sources, or political motivations that may have compromised the impartiality of the research.

Independent Media stands in solidarity with all journalists who face harassment and threats for doing their work, something our journalists have experienced too, including death threats and attempts on the lives of some of our reporters.

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Independent Media remains committed to the highest standards of journalism ethics and to the safety and well-being of all journalists. We will continue to advocate for fair and responsible research practices in the study of these vital issues.

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Ian Bazur-Persing was in a good place. Mental illness had dogged him for years, but by 2022, the 41-year-old was stable: settled into a sober living community in his hometown of Fort Wayne, Indiana, working for a lawn care company, and meditating regularly. He felt so good, in fact, that he went off his medication.  

Within weeks, he was in a state of psychosis. He and his parents sought assistance from local emergency rooms and the city’s crisis intervention team, but they couldn’t get any real help. On Christmas Eve, armed with an axe and a hunting knife, Bazur-Persing — who’d never before committed a serious crime — performed three robberies in quick succession, walking away with $610, a pair of earbuds, and a Bluetooth speaker.

He landed in the Allen County jail. No one gave him a psychological evaluation to determine his mental health status, and when Bazur-Persing’s parents, mindful of their son’s suicidal tendencies, urged medical personnel to reach out to his longtime provider about medications he might need, they refused.

“It was substandard care,” Ian’s mother, Lori Bazur-Persing, recalled. The crowded facility where her son remained for 75 days pretrial was the opposite of therapeutic. “There are no recreational facilities, no going outside. The lights are on all the time. He said it’s just terrible.”

Allen County is under a federal judge’s order to address overcrowding and poor conditions; three people have died at the jail since October. County commissioners and the sheriff would like to tear it down and build a bigger, more modern detention center with a separate mental health unit — at an estimated cost of $320 million. Some Allen County residents, however, say the current jail could simply be remodeled, with overcrowding and behavioral health issues addressed by policy changes and investments in community services instead.

The Bazur-Persings agree. “What we need is not a bigger jail, it’s a better version of the jail we have,” Tim Bazur-Persing, Ian’s father, said at a public hearing last fall.

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To make the case for the new jail, county officials have repeatedly pointed to a 2022 study they commissioned, which uses three different methodologies and a bevy of graphics to illustrate that Allen County will experience a steadily rising need for jail beds over time. The current facility was designed for 732 incarcerated people and held an average of 700 in 2023; the study predicts that by 2041, the county will need space for roughly 1,500 beds.

The study wasn’t conducted by a prominent criminal justice organization or consulting company. It was done by Elevatus, a Fort Wayne-based architecture firm that has designed jails all over Indiana and in several other states. For counties that are considering expanding their current jail or building a new one, Elevatus produces feasibility studies that usually predict growing incarceration needs. In many cases, Elevatus also wins a contract to draw up the plans for the facility it recommended.

“What we need is not a bigger jail, it’s a better version of the jail we have.”

That’s what happened in Allen County. Four months after Elevatus released its study, the company was hired to design the new jail. If the county’s elected officials approve the project, the firm’s design fees — factored as a percentage of the project’s total cost, as is standard for architecture firms — could be around $10 million. (Elevatus did not respond to The Intercept’s questions, and Allen County’s commissioners declined to comment.)  

Elevatus is far from the only architecture firm creating feasibility studies and needs assessments that recommend substantially larger jails and then designing those buildings. Such blatant conflict of interest is occurring in counties all over the country , particularly in rural and conservative areas where local public safety agencies often operate with little scrutiny. These studies rely on thin data to justify spending millions of dollars in public funds. The most significant consequence, though, is that more people wind up incarcerated. As a common industry refrain goes, “If you build it, they will fill it.”

Projections Always Go Up

In public discourse about incarceration, the country’s 3,100 local jails tend to be eclipsed by prisons. That’s despite the fact that at any given moment in 2022 , roughly a third of people incarcerated in the U.S. were detained in county or city jails. Seventy percent of them had not yet been convicted of any crime. Jails tend to hold people for shorter periods and see many return visitors; between July 2021 and June 2022, jail facilities around the nation recorded 7.3 million admissions.

While prison and big urban jail populations have declined in recent years, those numbers have swelled in more rural counties due to state and federal prisoners being sent to county facilities and an increased use of pretrial detention. Many jails are at capacity or overcrowded (defined as more than 80 percent full) and may be decades old and in serious disrepair.   

Commissioners and other elected officials considering expansion frequently turn to architecture firms that specialize in detention facilities to predict how many jail beds they’ll need down the line. In some states, the studies are mandated by law, and the companies are viewed as experts. Requests for study proposals rarely preclude the winning firms from later designing the facilities.

Most of the reports include legitimate design products like architectural drawings and space studies. Some also present pages of graphs and charts showing who has been in custody, when, why, and for how long. But the studies rarely analyze the bulk of that data to determine future incarceration trends; instead, most ground their projections solely on past population or incarceration numbers, seemingly undergirded by the maxim that crime will always get worse.

“The projections can be based on really problematic data,” said Beatrice Halbach-Singh, a senior research associate at the Vera Institute of Justice. For example, a feasibility study might take a jail’s population on a single day and extrapolate 30 years into the future. “It’s been shown time and time again that assessments and projections don’t match what actually happens.”

And even when an analysis shows crime or incarceration rates going down, she added, “a study will still recommend bigger facilities. They’ll say they need room to grow.”

That was the case in Genesee County, New York, where the existing 87-bed jail was routinely at or over capacity. In 2018, commissioners hired SMRT Architects and Engineers, out of Portland, Maine, to assess the county’s incarceration needs for the next 20 years. According to the firm’s report , crime had dipped in the past four years, and the county’s population was predicted to decline in the future. Nonetheless, the firm concluded that the jail would require 184 beds by 2042. County commissioners subsequently hired SMRT to design a new $70 million facility at just that size; construction is slated to be completed later this year.

In 2018, the Indiana-based architecture company RQAW wrote a feasibility study recommending that the state’s Vanderburgh County beef up its 540-bed jail with space for 900 to 1,200 additional people. Those numbers — and their $45 million price tag — may have been too much for the small county, which is now building a 158-bed expansion with a different architect.

And in 2022, Minneapolis-based Klein McCarthy Architects created a needs assessment for Cass County, North Dakota, that averaged the results of four methodologies to determine that the 348-bed facility would need to increase to 524 beds to meet the demands of the next 20 years. The report warned, however, “There is no commonly accepted methodology for making inmate population projections.” Klein McCarthy was unanimously selected by county commissioners to design the project, and the $30 million expansion is currently underway.

The report’s seemingly off-the-cuff observation was on target. Despite some architects’ stated rule of thumb that jails need three or four beds for every 1,000 people in the county, there is no formula that can predict future incarceration needs. And the Cass County Commission doesn’t seem to mind that. “Nothing is perfect. I don’t expect accuracy, just get us close,” said Chad Peterson, chair of the Cass County Board of Commissioners and a trained architect. He added that the county considered proposals from other firms, but that Klein McCarthy’s bid had the lowest cost. (Officials in Genesee and Vanderburgh counties did not respond to requests for comment.)

What does predict needs are laws and actions — and those can make the numbers go down as well as up.

“Who’s in jail is a product of the policies and practices of that criminal justice system,” said David Bennett, a consultant for the National Institute of Corrections, or NIC, a wing of the Federal Bureau of Prisons. “There’s no correlation between crime and incarceration rates. Until you examine data and operations, you’re not doing good planning. You’ll just have a bigger, more overcrowded jail.”

“Who’s in jail is a product of the policies and practices of that criminal justice system.”

Bennett has been focused on jail capacity planning since the 1970s and wrote the NIC’s Jail Capacity Planning Guide . The publication explains how to address overcrowding systemically by examining the disparate elements of a county’s criminal justice system that can affect incarceration numbers, including bail requirements, case processing times, diversion options, and sentencing mandates. Just about every local criminal justice system could keep more people out of jail who don’t need to be there, he said.

“With some exceptions, good planning isn’t done by architects,” Bennett said. “They don’t have the background and training. They don’t understand the criminal justice system and its intricacies.” Architects’ solutions to problems tend to be built structures. And if they benefit financially from designing larger jails, recommending that counties shrink them isn’t in their interest.

For county commissioners and sheriffs, there aren’t many alternatives to using architecture firms. The NIC offers free comprehensive jail and justice system assessments, but the service isn’t well known. And only a handful of other consultants around the country perform comprehensive evaluations.

Architects, though, are easy to come by.

Lucrative but Opaque

Firms that design detention facilities, police stations, and courthouses have dubbed themselves the “justice architecture” sector. The companies — some large and well-established, earning eight-figure annual revenues from the work — are all over the country, but the field isn’t particularly competitive. In Indiana, for example, which has been experiencing a major boom in jail construction since 2015, three companies — Elevatus, RQAW, and DLZ — have designed 90 percent of the state’s recent projects.  

While the word “architect” might conjure images of soaring ceilings and big windows, very few of the firms working on jails are creating innovative designs. The work is extremely specialized, but detention facilities tend to be very similar to one another; some companies have prototype jail plans they tweak for different customers.

Nonetheless, the field is profitable. Citizens tend to agree that their county needs a decent, secure jail, but few pay close attention to the public finance tools like bonds and taxes that pay for it. The costs are so giant that differences appear almost meaningless. With payments spread over 30 years, the distinction between a $50 million bond and a $60 million bond can seem trifling.    

It’s also a remarkably opaque sector. Few of the practitioners The Intercept contacted responded, and academics and advocates had little to offer. The American Institute of Architects, the field’s professional association, which runs the Academy of Architecture for Justice , a networking and continuing education committee, declined to comment for this story.    

Detention facilities tend to be very similar to one another; some companies have prototype jail plans they tweak for different customers.

The justice architecture field briefly surfaced in the news in late 2020 after a longtime campaign to limit architects’ involvement in human rights violations finally succeeded. AIA changed its code of ethics to bar members from designing spaces meant for execution or long-term solitary confinement. The organization’s New York chapter went further, calling on its members to refrain from designing any spaces of incarceration. At least one justice architecture firm backed away from the work in response.

The rule change doesn’t appear to be enforced. For example, new jail facilities include spaces for solitary confinement, which is considered torture when it exceeds 15 days. “We don’t have data on how many people are held for 15 days or more, though based on anecdotal information, we know it isn’t unusual,” said Jean Casella, director of Solitary Watch, a group that advocates against solitary confinement. Nonetheless, a majority of principals and lead architects in companies designing detention facilities are AIA members.

Like any other industry, the leaders of justice architecture firms cultivate relationships, sponsor affiliated conferences (“We are proud to continue to be a Badger State Sheriffs’ Association gold sponsor at the Q2 Training Conference” read one company’s Facebook post), and donate politically. In Allen County, both Elevatus and DLZ — the companies as well as their individual leaders — contributed handsomely to the sheriff’s and county commissioners’ campaigns in 2021 and 2022, campaign finance reports reveal.

Some firms now host citizen meetings and create websites touting potential jail development, particularly if the project requires public approval. In Greene County, Ohio, justice architecture giant HDR was paid not only to create a needs assessment, but also to monitor the social media activity of local opponents of a new jail. News of that surveillance later cost HDR the design job, but voters eventually approved the jail anyway.

“If You Build It, They Will Fill It”

Sometimes architects are the cheerleaders for a new, expanded jail and bring the county’s policymakers around. Often, however, elected officials — particularly sheriffs — want something bigger, and the design firms are simply justifying the desired bed increases.  

Maybe the sheriff wants to add mental health and programming facilities to better address the needs of people in custody, a trend that, conveniently for architecture firms, requires substantial new construction. Or perhaps the sheriff is hoping to earn revenue by renting out extra beds to nearby counties or to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the U.S. Marshals Service, or the federal government. (That may or may not work. Those plans are vulnerable to policy changes and don’t always produce the projected profits .)  

Most of all, local officials likely want to add enough beds so that they don’t have to go through the process again anytime soon. Jail construction can be a Herculean task that takes years, as land acquisitions fall through, bond referendums fail, and county commissioners turn over. Officials reason they might as well add enough space to last another 20 or 30 years.

As the NIC’s Jail Planning guide states, “beds have a tendency to be filled,” in the same way that traffic actually increases when a highway is widened. Law enforcement officials and judges who were forced to seek alternatives for low-level offenders when a facility was full no longer have an incentive to keep people out or shorten their stays when the jail’s capacity expands. In Hancock County, Indiana, after a new jail more than doubled the number of beds available, a headline read, “Hancock County Jail fully open; inmate numbers on the rise.”

Experts like the NIC’s Bennett emphasize that the real way to reduce jail overcrowding is through policy, especially at the local level. Sheriffs have great discretion over how minor infractions are treated, who gets released on their own recognizance, and whether failure-to-appear warrants are called in. Changes like these were implemented during the pandemic, and jail populations dropped precipitously , with little downside .

Researchers agree that behavioral health problems, which are disproportionately experienced by incarcerated individuals, are best addressed in a community setting, not in jail. Treating people who struggle with mental illness or substance abuse elsewhere could radically reduce a jail population. And the expense could be far less than the many millions a new jail costs to design, build, and operate.

In some communities, grassroots coalitions opposing the construction of bigger jails are now scrutinizing architects’ feasibility studies. In California, for example, Decarcerate Sacramento succeeded in pausing an almost $1 billion jail expansion project while officials commissioned a third-party review of a justice architecture firm’s studies. In Berks County, Pennsylvania, another citizen-led group organized residents and forced a yearlong break in talks about a larger jail.

Back in Allen County, Indiana, Help Not Handcuffs is organizing against the jail. “Our stance has been, let’s figure out how to keep the jail where it is. Reduce the population and renovate the jail at a fraction of the cost of the proposed one, saving $200 million of taxpayers’ money,” said Emmanuel Ortiz, the coalition’s coordinator. “Nonviolent offenders, drug problems, people having mental health crises — that’s been a guidepost for our efforts, how to get people out of the jail.”

If reforms like those had been made two years ago, Ian Bazur-Persing may have gotten the mental health treatment he needed. Instead, he’s serving 15 years in an Indiana state prison.

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