This article is from a special report on the Athens Democracy Forum7xm, which gathered experts last week in the Greek capital to discuss global issues.
Moderator: Pamela Paul, columnist, The New York Times
Participants: Persiana Aksentieva, youth fellow, International Youth Think Tank; Dr. Battinto L. Batts Jr., dean, Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, Arizona State University; Stephen Dunbar-Johnson, president, International, The New York Times Company; Camille Grenier, executive director, Forum on Information and Democracy
Excerpts from the panel Rethinking Journalism: A Crisis of Confidence have been edited and condensed.
PAMELA PAUL We are at very fraught times for journalism. People don’t believe journalists, and they don’t want to pay for journalism. So with that, I just ask each of you: How you see the future of journalism given those enormous and perhaps insurmountable threats to its existence?
DR. BATTINTO L. BATTS JR. Despite the dramatic change that’s happened in the industry from an economic standpoint, I remain very positive and bullish on the future of journalism. We still need it very much in our communities. From a global perspective, it’s very much a part of a healthy democracy. And I’m encouraged by the students who I get to interact with on a day-to-day basis at the Cronkite School.
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SKIP ADVERTISEMENTPAUL All right, Persiana, perhaps you can talk about the future and what you see as an aspiring journalist.
PERSIANA AKSENTIEVA I’m representing the International Youth Think Tank as a youth fellow, so I’m very happy to bring this young perspective to this important discussion today because I think it’s not a surprise for everyone sitting in this room that young people distrust media. There are many reasons for that. There is, for example, fake news, and misinformation that let young people avoid media. But what we have to do as International Youth Think Tank members is dive deeper into understanding a bit more, what makes us distrust the media?
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