Why Recognizing Risk is Three-Quarters of the Problem

• In Event: When Authoritarianism Rattles Journalism’s Supposed Foundations

Abstract

This presentation will address journalism’s inability to recognize when it faces risk and trace what it does that exacerbates its entry into risk-ridden territory. Putting scholarship on the cultural dimensions of risk in conversation with common understandings of the dominant aspects of journalistic practice, the presentation argues that journalism constitutes a prime target of risk largely because much of its predominant mindset leaves journalists unable to notice its proximity. What ensues requires an overhaul of the contours of journalistic authority, that set of conventions by which journalists need to repeatedly and continuously establish themselves as spokespeople for and translators of public life. The presentation will use U.S. journalism’s responses to President Trump as fodder for its argument.

Author

• Barbie Zelizer, U of Pennsylvania