Journalism is Civic Infrastructure. We need to support it.

By Alberto Ibargüen.

When a community is no longer well-informed, a slow social and political train crash follows. We’re already on that track – but it isn’t too late to stop it. 

A Pew Research Center survey conducted in March 2025 found that 80 percent of American adults think Republicans and Democrats not only disagree on policies, but cannot agree on basic facts. Small wonder. The institutions Americans once relied upon for news, especially at the local level, have been dramatically weakened. Opinion increasingly presents itself as news; some of it is good reporting, much is simply point of view.

The Constitution’s Framers understood the danger of concentrated power. They created three branches of government—executive, legislative and judicial—and gave each power to check the others. They also protected religion, speech and press, different sources of expression, authority and values, each independent of government. 

I spent much of my career in and close to the news business. {I watched as public ownership of print and broadcast news often gave way to the pressure for ever-greater returns. That led to less investment in journalism and technology just as cable and internet alternatives proliferated.

Today, artificial intelligence poses a radical re-think of the entire process, likely transforming again how information is gathered, edited and distributed. But who will produce original reporting?

AI can summarize a city council investigation. It cannot summarize an investigation that was never conducted because nobody paid a reporter to attend the meetings, develop the sources, examine the documents and ask the questions. Ironically, technology has made the information inexpensive to distribute while destroying the economic entities that produced original reporting. But AI is the new reality. Serious journalism should be at its center – improving reporting while finding ways for the technology to help sustain the craft on which it depends. 

Some organizations produce news that transcends geography – those focused on national, international or business news, for example – and have natural synergy with technology unbound by geography. They seem to me to be the most likely to thrive. 

But what about local journalism – the reporting at the base of a democracy whose citizens still live, work, vote and govern themselves in actual communities? 

I believe the road back begins with a better-informed community.

I had the privilege of leading Knight Foundation as it funded hundreds of experiments in nonprofit local news. Today, investments by the MacArthur Foundation, Emerson Collective and others are helping support local journalism. Those are important—and not nearly enough. 

Producing reliable, high-quality journalism is expensive. It requires experienced reporters, editors and visual journalist who use technology responsibly to dig into public records and fact-check data. Too often it requires lawyers to push for public information that governments balk at sharing, and to defend reporters who are doing their jobs. 

Philanthropy needs to recognize what is at stake and invest much more substantially in independent journalism, particularly at the local level. It is the base of our democracy.

Efforts to encourage government support may also help. But such support has to be carefully structured to avoid the danger of political influence. Organizations such as Rebuild Local News are exploring tax credits and other methods intended to support journalism while protecting its independence. We should keep experimenting.

Internet and AI companies have a stake in reliable and independent journalism. Their products derive enormous value from journalism they didn’t produce. If the organizations producing original reporting disappear, the information on which their own product depends deteriorates. What’s needed from them is not philanthropy; it’s investment in the integrity of their own products. 

Citizens may play the most important role. They need to think critically about the information they consume online. What is the source, and what is its policy about verifying facts? Many news outlets who report responsibly need to charge a subscription …and consumers need to support it with dollars. 

A well-functioning democracy requires informed citizens. And informed citizens require independent, consistently reliable journalism. As a nation, we need to understand what the Framers understood: journalism is essential civic infrastructure.

Alberto Ibargüen is the former publisher of The Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald, and former president of John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.