2) Anyone who has paid attention to journalism knows very little time/energy is given by news organizations to the critical investigation of the industry of journalism. An institution with massive political, social, economic power is bypassed. Of course. Who wants to damage their own brand?

— Christian Christensen (@chrchristensen.bsky.social) 2025-07-07T14:36:09.399Z

3) Post-9/11 coverage of Iraq? 2016 coverage of Trump? Ignoring massive poverty? Saying "Mistakes were made" years later isn't critical. WHY mistakes were made? HOW journalism functions? The IMPACT of poor coverage on society, politics, economy? That's a critical examination.

— Christian Christensen (@chrchristensen.bsky.social) 2025-07-07T14:36:40.215Z

4) News orgs usually blame shortcomings on individual failure: it was "bad journalism" or "poor decision-making." A few “bad apples.” But failure is often systemic: a result of the process, not in spite of it. Journalism always looks for bad apples in the news basket. It needs to look at the basket.

— Christian Christensen (@chrchristensen.bsky.social) 2025-07-07T14:37:28.853Z

5) When CBS boss Les Moonves said this about Trump, it was the most honest explanation ever for how structure impacts content. But we don't see stories about how profits drive news coverage because journalism is part of the system it is meant to monitor, and that rarely works.

— Christian Christensen (@chrchristensen.bsky.social) 2025-07-07T14:38:16.939Z

6) So, transparency. A failing of journalism has been an unwillingness to explain to citizens how news works. And I mean literally. What's the process -- from start to finish -- for making news? Simple knowledge of how news is made would, I think, counter a great deal of lies and mistrust.

— Christian Christensen (@chrchristensen.bsky.social) 2025-07-07T14:38:57.140Z

7) Journalism isn't the Manhattan Project. How it works isn't some national secret. But there's a lot of ignorance and misinformation out there. News outlets would gain a lot, I think, from informing citizens on the process of news work...and even involving those citizens from time to time.

— Christian Christensen (@chrchristensen.bsky.social) 2025-07-07T14:39:55.510Z

8) Yes, it's one thing to tell citizens about the day-to-day practice of news work, but something else to honestly explain how news orgs make money. Like social media giants explaining how algorithms work, any why. But even an acknowledgement of central role of profit in most news would be a start.

— Christian Christensen (@chrchristensen.bsky.social) 2025-07-07T14:40:48.646Z

9) Finally: Self-congratulation. After 2016, many news orgs like WaPo used Trump’s victory to pontificate about importance of journalism to society. Conveniently omitting, of course, how they played a major part in mainstreaming candidates they now say hurt democracy. And look at them now.

— Christian Christensen (@chrchristensen.bsky.social) 2025-07-07T14:42:17.183Z

10) For decades, journalism leveraged history to justify its status, cultural position and power. But, maybe it's time to forget Watergate. Self-importance, especially when looking backward, won't win over skeptical, jaded citizens. Tell them what journalism WILL do, not what it DID do.

— Christian Christensen (@chrchristensen.bsky.social) 2025-07-07T14:43:25.470Z