A new book released in the United States of America has proposed wide-ranging reforms required in journalism practice in the current global environment shaped by digital platforms, fragmented audiences, and artificial intelligence (AI) to make news more useful, trustworthy, and responsive to the communities it serves.
Authored by veteran American journalist, scholar, and media researcher Tom Rosenstiel, and titled “The Next Journalism: How the Press Must Change to Serve Democracy,” the 400-page book was published by Crown on August 18, 2026.
According to the book, declining public confidence in news organisations, the expansion of news deserts, and the growing tendency of audiences to turn away from alarmist, partisan, and fragmented coverage have weakened the relationship between journalism and the public.
Arguing that the crisis confronting journalism is not only financial or technological but also intellectual, the author proposed that journalism should be understood more as a public service than a product, with news organisations placing greater emphasis on helping people understand and navigate their lives rather than merely attracting attention.
He also advocated greater transparency, closer collaboration with communities, and the responsible use of artificial intelligence (AI) as part of a broader effort to rebuild public trust in the press.
The book presents 10 proposed changes intended to guide journalism through a rapidly changing information environment.
Among the central ideas is a shift from an attention-driven model of news to one focused on public usefulness, as the author also called for journalism to become more collaborative, transparent, and responsive to the needs of audiences.
The book further explored how news organisations can use technology and AI to extend the reach and usefulness of human journalism without abandoning core journalistic values.
In an interview with the Columbia Journalism Review, the author said journalism should “run toward” AI rather than away from it, arguing that AI should be used to improve journalism rather than simply reduce costs.
He suggested that AI could help news organisations analyse public data, identify under-covered communities, detect potentially false claims, and better understand audience needs.
The author, however, distinguished the use of AI as a tool from the replacement of journalists by machines, with his approach placing human journalism, public participation, and technological systems in complementary roles.
AI received significant attention in the book, with the author arguing that journalism cannot afford simply to wait and see how AI develops, and proposing that the news industry should engage actively with AI while establishing responsible practices for its use.
He argued that, properly deployed, AI could help journalists and citizens better understand their communities and make journalism more useful.
The book consequently places AI within the broader question of journalism’s public purpose rather than treating it merely as a newsroom technology.
The book’s central concern is the relationship between journalism and democracy, with the author arguing that a healthy democracy requires a press that provides citizens with reliable information and helps them participate meaningfully in public life.
In proposing a “journalism of value” that focuses more directly on helping people understand and navigate the issues affecting their lives, the book challenged news organisations to reconsider the relationship between journalists and their audiences, treating the public not simply as consumers of news but as communities with knowledge, experience, and perspectives that can contribute to journalism.
The book therefore examined how news organisations can become more relevant to the communities they cover and regain public confidence, with its proposals including more transparent journalistic practices, stronger engagement with audiences, and a renewed focus on the public value of news.
The author insists that 21st-century journalism should regard communities as partners in the journalistic process rather than passive audiences, describing the approach as “collaborative intelligence” and arguing that journalists can draw on the lived experience and knowledge of communities while retaining professional standards of verification and reporting.
The author extended the idea of collaboration to technology and AI, arguing that journalists can use machines and AI as tools to strengthen professional journalism rather than treating them solely as threats.
In addressing the decline of public trust in news, the author identified three elements that contribute to trust, namely that journalists must be competent and accountable, while audiences must also believe that journalists are acting with benevolent intentions.
He argued that efforts to address declining trust have often concentrated on competence and accountability without paying sufficient attention to whether audiences believe journalists genuinely have their interests at heart.
The book consequently called for journalism that is more transparent about how reporting is produced and more attentive to the needs and experiences of the communities it serves.
The author also suggested that rather than viewing interviews primarily as transactions through which journalists obtain quotations, they should treat interviews as opportunities for discovery and deeper understanding.
The book offered examples and techniques intended to help journalists rethink interviewing as a more substantive process of inquiry, with its chapter on “Reinventing the Interview” as a notable part of the book’s practical guidance for journalists.
It presented 10 fundamental ways in which journalism should change to become more useful, trustworthy, and collaborative.
Among the issues explored are the shift from journalism based on attention to journalism based on value, journalism’s professional ideology, collaborative intelligence, responsible use of AI, journalism as a service, the reinvention of interviewing, the nature of trust in news, and the possibility of maintaining a public sphere built around shared facts.
The author supported his arguments with case studies, historical perspectives, and examples of news organisations experimenting with new approaches.
Indeed, the publisher described the book as combining case studies, historical insight and forward-looking ideas to offer journalists, policymakers, and readers a practical framework for considering the future of the press.
The book is presented as a follow-up in spirit to the writer’s earlier work, “The Elements of Journalism”, which he co-authored and which has influenced discussions about the principles and responsibilities of journalism.
While “The Elements of Journalism” examined what journalism is and the principles citizens should expect from the press, “The Next Journalism” asks how those principles need to evolve in an environment shaped by digital platforms, fragmented audiences, and AI.
The book is available in paperback, e-book, and audiobook editions. The publisher lists the paperback at 400 pages, with an audiobook running approximately 10 hours and 20 minutes.
Rosenstiel, the author, is a journalist, media critic, researcher, novelist, and professor whose career has included senior positions in journalism and media research. He is the co-author, with Bill Kovach, of The Elements of Journalism, a widely used work on the principles and practice of journalism.
He has served as press critic for the Los Angeles Times, chief congressional correspondent for Newsweek, press critic for MSNBC, and director of media studies at the Pew Research Center. He subsequently led the American Press Institute and currently serves as Eleanor Merrill Professor on the Future of Journalism at the University of Maryland.
He is the author of seven nonfiction books, including “The Elements of Journalism”, as well as four novels.
