Part II - The Vanishing Newsroom: The Collapse of Journalism’s Business Model Threatens Democracy

Cartoons by kind courtesy of Jeff Danziger, cartoonist and author, plus member of Cartooning for Peace, a Global Geneva Group partner.

In Part I of this three-part series, I described the multiple threats facing independent journalism: authoritarian repression, targeted killings, the manipulation of truth, and the intimidation of reporters.

In Part II, we examine another front in the struggle: the economic and structural collapse of journalism itself. For even without autocrats or manipulative regimes ranging from Bulgaria to Uganda, the industry is failing under the weight of a broken business model and a disengaged generation.

Like rock ’n’ roll, trusted journalism may not be dead. But it urgently needs new ways to survive.

As a schoolboy in Toronto, I became obsessed with the news. When John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, I collected every article I could find to see how different newspapers reported the story. Later, at boarding school in England, I devoured the Guardian, the Daily Mail, and other UK dailies, as well as the International Herald Tribune from Paris, savouring the differences in tone and perspective.

Equally formative was a class called Two Cheers for Democracy. Each week, students compared how European newspapers covered major stories: the Vietnam War, Paris student protests, Soviet crackdowns. Our teacher, Ernie Pollack, a South African Jew banned by the apartheid regime, drilled into us a lesson I never forgot: “Never rely on a single source. Everyone has a different point of view.”

That became the foundation of my career. Journalism works best when it exposes audiences to different perspectives, enabling them to question, compare, and judge for themselves. But today, that ecosystem is collapsing.

Why Truth Still Matters

Teenagers now can summon endless streams of information on their phones: TikTok clips of drone strikes in Ukraine, podcasts by political influencers, AI-generated “explainers”. Much of it is misleading or outright false. Leaders from Washington to Moscow, Tel Aviv to Tehran, repeat falsehoods until they appear to become truth.

This is hardly new. Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s propaganda minister, famously grasped the power of repetition. What is new is the digital acceleration: lies now travel at the speed of algorithms, amplified by platforms designed to reward outrage and clicks.

Independent reporting remains our best defence. It is not flawless, but it provides sourcing, context and verification. Channel4 in Britain recently devoted an entire evening to fact-checking more than 100 falsehoods uttered by Donald Trump on his September 2025 visit to the UK. That is what journalism should be doing. Yet far too many outlets, especially in the United States, now shy away from such efforts or openly kowtow to the Emperor, fearing political retaliation.

Authenticity Reporting

Artificial intelligence may help organise information, but it cannot replace what some now call “authenticity reporting”. As a foreign correspondent, I never relied solely on official statements. Whether in Islamabad, Bangkok or Mogadishu, I spent hours walking the streets, talking to taxi drivers and shopkeepers, visiting bazaars and farm villages, or even getting a daily shave at a barbershop, where people often spoke more freely.

This kind of legwork provides nuance and contradiction that algorithms cannot replicate. It exposes the hypocrisies: Hamas silencing dissent among Gazans; Netanyahu once funding Hamas to weaken Palestinian unity; or the deeper history since 1948 of forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians by the israeli state that predates the atrocities of 7 October 2023. Good reporting shows that conflicts are never as simple as ideologues would have us believe.

Critical reporting is vital in time of war to avoid history repeating itself

Jeff Danziger

Journalism as a Public Good

The deeper crisis is not just disinformation. It is the weakening of journalism as a civic institution. Many young people no longer understand how professional reporting works, or why it is indeed relevant. They see “the media” as part of the problem rather than part of the solution.

But journalism is not merely a business. As the Fourth Estate, it is a public good as essential to democracy as schools, hospitals, or fire services. When local newspapers close, corruption thrives. When watchdog reporting vanishes, officials act with impunity leaving people in ignorance for which there is no excuse. We must all assume our responsibilities. If we do not, then we only have ourselves to blame.

If journalism is a public good, then societies must treat it as such: by funding it, supporting it, but also, equally crucial, holding the press accountable as with every other institution.

The role of reporting: to inform the public about realities

Jeff Danziger

The Collapse of the Old Model

Until the 1990s, newspapers and broadcasters relied on a straightforward formula: subscriptions and advertising paid for newsrooms that could afford foreign correspondents, investigative teams, and specialist reporters. That model has collapsed.

Tech giants - Google, Meta, Amazon - now dominate advertising, hoovering up revenues once destined for newspapers and broadcast networks. They freely circulate journalistic content – some prefer to use the word ‘steal’ - on their platforms without compensation, while their algorithms privilege virality over accuracy.

The results are stark: mass closures of newspapers, hollowed-out newsrooms, and vast “information deserts” from rural America to Europe’s smaller regions. Even once-powerful titles like TIME and Newsweek have been reduced to shadows of their former selves.

Paywalls offer little salvation. The Washington Post charges $4 a month, Le Temps in Switzerland $20, Spain’s El País around $10. But youth accustomed to free content rarely subscribe. The BBC World Service, long considered a global public good as one of the most reliable news sources - now charges U.S. users, a move that denies millions access to trusted information.

Losing the Next Generation

Perhaps the gravest danger is journalism’s failure to capture its future audience. Research by the Reuters Institute and Pew shows that for the first time, more young Americans cite social media and video platforms (54 per cent) as their primary news source than television (50 per cent) or websites (48 per cent). In Britain, more than 70 per cent of young people prefer social media to the BBC, ITV or Sky.

As one Geneva teenager bluntly asked me: “Isn’t journalism just the sort of thing I can find on YouTube or Instagram?”

The painstaking work of verification, editing and ethics barely registers. Many young consumers cannot distinguish credible reporting from misinformation, a vulnerability propagandist but also criminal networks and hackers exploit with ease.

Journalists, educators, and parents share the blame. We have failed to integrate media literacy into schools. The result is a generation sceptical of “legacy media” but defenceless against manipulation.

The Cost of Ignorance

This disengagement is not just cultural, but political. When communities lose independent journalism, they lose oversight. Corruption, incompetence, and abuse flourish unchallenged.

The United States offers a warning. As NPR’s Mayer noted in Part I, when no one covers school boards, agricultural markets, or local traffic, citizens lose the information they need to govern themselves. Without journalism, democracy itself weakens or collapses completely.

This is not unique to America. Across Europe and the Mediterranean, regional outlets struggle to survive. In Switzerland's Ticino, journalists warn that without funding, independent civic reporting will disappear entirely.

The absence of reliable reporting has consequences far beyond politics. It means that climate change, migration, business, education and cultural heritage go under-reported. It means entire communities are deprived of stories that matter to their daily lives.

Journalism as Democracy’s Lifeline

Investigative reporting has changed history. The Pentagon Papers exposed government lies about Vietnam. The Washington Post’s pursuit of Watergate forced Nixon’s resignation. El País revealed Spain’s Gürtel corruption scandal. France’s Mediapart exposed Nicolas Sarkozy’s Libyan dealings, leading to indictment.

None of these stories emerged from influencers or TikTok personalities. While social media platforms can help disseminate information to audiences not normally touched by traditional press, serious journalism still requires professional reporters, painstaking verification, and editorial courage.

And yet, just when societies are most polarised and vulnerable to disinformation, journalism’s reach and resources are shrinking. The irony is cruel: never has the world needed credible reporting more, yet never has it been weaker.

Reminding politicians of the regimes they support

Jeff Danziger

A Perfect Storm

What we face today is a convergence of crises. Authoritarian regimes are restricting access and targeting journalists, while Big Tech has stripped away revenues. Even more detrimental, younger audiences drift into unverified echo chambers where solid reporting is not even considered a ‘must read’.

This is not only threatens the end of an industry; it is the erosion of one of democracy’s last safeguards. Without trusted reporting and proper scrutiny, citizens cannot make informed choices leading to increasingly fractured societies.

As I reflect on over four decades of reporting from Afghanistan to Haiti, from famine zones to political upheavals, one truth stands out: accurate and well-sourced information saves lives. It warns of impending crises, exposes atrocities, and holds power accountable. But unless journalism finds a way to survive economic collapse, that role is imperilled.

Setting the Stage

The question is not whether credible journalism still exists. It does, often against all odds, from small independent outlets in Kenya or El Salvador to established titles like Le Monde or The Atlantic. The question is how to sustain it. One Kenyan filmmaker, a winner of the Frontline awards in London, spent nearly eight months seeking modest funding to finance the reporting of the rise in suicides amongst farmers that was eventually aired on the BBC.

If journalism is to endure, it needs renewal. That means rethinking how to engage the next generation, how to rebuild trust, and how to fund reporting without sacrificing independence.

While many news outlets and journalists are increasingly relying on foundation grants and donates to operate, this is not enough. We need to find a more effective, multi-layered financial model on which the press can rely in the long term, and not always forced to scramble to keep operating

In Part III, I turn to potential solutions: investing in youth, holding tech companies accountable, creating global funds for watchdog reporting, and meeting audiences where they are. For if we fail, it is not only journalism that dies. It is democracy itself.

Edward Girardet is a Geneva-based foreign correspondent and author. He has reported conflict, humanitarian and environmental issues worldwide for more than 40 years.