The “public service ethos” in news in general and in online news in specific needs to be reinforced, write Gregory Lowe, of University of Tampere, and Alan Stavitsky, of University of Nevada. The authors discuss the current state of the media system and its effects on journalism.

The emergence of internet as a journalistic platform created a disruption, which has left legacy media companies struggling to maintain profitability online. The newcomers are better adapted to the online environment, but less influential due to lack in both audience and production resources. As a result, commercial online news are hard to produce to a standard required by democratic societies, the authors write.

Public service media institutions and non-profits are not the sole answer, either, as they are or may be bound by their funders’ wishes. Instead, the public service ethos, as described by the authors, is a quality that can be best achieved through the collaboration of the entire media system – commercial, PSB, non-profit, and citizen media all included.

The article Ensuring public service news provision in the era of networked communications was published by the journal International Communication Gazette. It is available online (abstract free).

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