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Why Journalism Matters to Democracy

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Certain news outlets make their missions clear right from the masthead. “Democracy dies in darkness,” warns the Washington Post. “Without fear or favor,” declares the New York Times. The Wall Street Journal tells readers, “It’s your business.”

Not all news organizations have mottos like this, but they serve as reminders of journalism’s primary purpose. Still, trust in media has fallen to its lowest point in decades. A recent Gallup poll shows that only 28% of Americans trust media. The institutions once relied on to help the public understand the world beyond their own perspective now struggle to convince people that they are telling the truth at all.

But public distrust is often based on misunderstanding. As Matthew Powers, co-director of the Center for Journalism, Media, and Democracy (CJMD) at the University of Washington notes, when people are asked whether they trust “the media,” they may be thinking about the New York Times, Fox News, or even social media influencers.

“People don’t make the distinctions,” Powers, who co-authored the book “The Journalist’s Predicament: Difficult Choices in a Declining Profession,” said. “The news outlets that have the highest level of trust are local news media…they’re also the ones that have the biggest economic problems.”

This evolving tension—the promise of journalism and the erosion of faith in it—poses a serious challenge for both journalism and democratic life. But it also raises an important question: What are journalists for, and how can they convince people of that purpose?

Journalism’s Democratic Purpose Still Stands

Journalism informs people about decisions made in their name and with their tax dollars, policies that impact communities and the country, issues that shape the future, and provides information that educates. A healthy democracy relies on an informed public, and journalism is one of the mechanisms that makes broad civic understanding possible.

Aside from disseminating information, news organizations also have also built a reputation for holding powerful people and institutions accountable. Journalists expose wrongdoing, encourage institutions to act ethically, and ensure that those who wield influence do not do so unchecked. In the United States, this watchdog function is not just a part of the industry⁠, rather, it’s protected as a fundamental right. The First Amendment enshrines freedom of the press as essential to the nation’s system of checks and balances, recognizing that democracy cannot function when information is controlled, concealed, or manipulated.

Journalism also serves as a space for dialogue, debate, and uplifting of diverse perspectives. It’s a platform not just for those who have power but also for those who don’t⁠—those communities that have been historically underserved by the country and its media industry. Through this function, journalism shapes a shared understanding of reality, built by a collection of voices.

Yet Powers emphasized that journalism also serves another facet of democracy: the ability to live a meaningful life. Even without the dominance it held in the past, journalism still plays a role in terms of the fabric of what people are able to talk about, enabling people to use a wide range of stories to talk about deeper issues.

One recent example is the Sydney Sweeney American Eagle “Jeans/Genes” ad that, according to Vox, “sure got people talking.” Journalism’s role in this moment was essentially to break down why a pop-culture flare-up turned into a deeper public conversation, and to take what could have been dismissed as “just an ad” and reveal why it struck such a nerve.

Reporters didn’t just cover the ad’s backlash; they explained why the language around “genes” carries a long history tied to eugenics, racial hierarchies, and beauty standards, bringing in experts in race, media studies, and advertising to articulate how racial signifiers and desirability politics work, perspectives the public might not have encountered otherwise.

Hitting at an issue closer to home, the disappearance of local journalism is more consequential than people realize. In a 2025 article published by the Columbia Journalism Review, Brad. N. Greenwood reports new empirical research highlighting that when major local newspapers shut down, federal corruption charges, indicted defendants, and cases filed all sharply rise, about seven percent across each measure. The disappearance of robust local journalism is thus correlated with measurable increases in corruption. When the authors used a difference-in-differences analysis across 65 U.S. newspaper closures (and a parallel study in Brazil), the authors found a consistent pattern: once a local newspaper disappears, corruption grows, and online outlets do not meaningfully offset the loss.

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