Herald editors confident of journalism’s future

by Paul Lambert and Jackson Morgan

Even as public trust in the media has declined, the future of journalism is bright, two Boston Herald editors said Monday morning.

Joseph Sciacca and Joe Dwinell called in via Skype with students participating in the Presidency and the Press program at Franklin Pierce University. Sciacca is the

P&P participant Alison Kaiser asks a question of Herald editors.

Editor-in-Chief of the Herald, and Dwinell is the Director of Investigative and Special Reports.

Sciacca cited a Gallup poll taken in the wake of the Watergate scandal, which placed public trust in the media at 72 percent. That number was down to just 32 percent in the 2016 version of that poll.

“People do not trust what the media is reporting,” said Sciacca. “We can blame it on Trump… but he’s building on a foundation that was already there.”

The next generation, says Sciacca, is the key to a resurgence in journalism. During a recent meeting with the president of Emerson College, Lee Pelton, Sciacca discovered that the number of journalism majors at the school is currently “through the roof.”

“Today’s young people are the most informed generation,” Sciacca said. “Young people are consumers of the news because they are continually being pelted with little snippets of information throughout the course of their day.

Dwinell also brought up the effect that recent technological advancements have had on journalism.

“We are in the midst of a technological age,” said Dwinell. “The web has been a disruptive innovation. It’s not going away… When news breaks, people want to read it as quickly as they can.”

Sciacca added that the advent of social media has created “citizen journalists,” ordinary people who capture and relay the news before major publications are able to.

“People aren’t relying anymore simply on the mainstream media for their content,” he said. “Now anybody out there, because of technology, has the ability to report.”

Sciacca is one to believe that reporting will continue to be an integral to Americans.

“I don’t think journalism is going to die,” he concluded. “I think journalism is alive and well and will continue to be a positive force for change.”