Victor Pickard is an associate professor at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the editor (with Robert McChesney) of Will the Last Reporter Please Turn out the Lights and the author of America’s Battle for Media Democracy: The Triumph of Corporate Libertarianism and the Future of Media Reform (2014).
Victor Pickard
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Writing on Public Books
The Big Picture: Misinformation Society
Trump’s election laid bare structural flaws in our news and information systems. As mainstream news media sensationalized and trivialized what was at stake in the elections, social media amplified misinformation and propaganda. These media pathologies paved the way for the triumph of a demagogue. While criticism of such problems has escalated since the election, the […]
Wither(ing) Journalism?
The journalism crisis continues. Yet, as so often happens when social problems require structural reform, once the alarm bells fell silent—as they did after the sudden 2008–2009 downturn—our sense of urgency subsided. As with the broader financial system, whose collapse accelerated the fourth estate’s decline, the status quo has reasserted itself after being jolted. Previous […]
