The Death and Life of American Journalism

This books investigates the crisis in United States (US) journalism through the perspective of an academic and a journalist. They propose a strategy for saving journalism that looks back to how the US "Founding Fathers" ensured free press protection with the US constitutional first amendment and provided subsidies to the burgeoning print press of the young nation. It provides an explanation of the current crisis in journalism, a critique of the current favoured "solutions" to the crisis, and an argument for strong public subsidies to create a viable, independent news media. It is based on research, but has been written to address the "crisis of the immediate moment and visible future". According to the authors, the argument and the proposals they make are controversial and go against the conventional wisdom, so they provide evidence to make their case.

The authors describe the decline of and possible financial solutions for US journalism, demonstrating that the "Old School" print journalism empire is closing - weeklies and daily newspapers closing, reporters and editors losing their jobs, and Washington bureaus and other areas of federal government assigned less coverage. The book suggests that the fall of the national press has occurred due to the rise of the internet, the ownership of the press and TV news shows by large media conglomerates, and hard economic times. The book calls for a new era of experimentation in which a hybrid of old and new media emerges.