The End of Journalism?

Journalism & Media Discussion Forum: The End of Journalism?
Adrian Monck is the head of journalism at City University London, the link here is to his recent post on "the end of journalism" blogsite.
Is there a link between journalism and democracy? In theory "yes", but it needs to be much more carefully unpacked and analysed.
Most of the world has some resemblance to "democracy", but usually of a limited, restricted parliamentary sort. In some parts of the world the values of democracy are already under threat.
The fourth estate model of journalism is discredited and news workers are generally seen as lacking in ethics and credibility.
The key paradox for me is in the duality of the news commodity. Journalism is, as Monck says, both an information source and a watchdog. But this is fatally flawed by the commercial imperative of the market system. The ethical imperative of journalism - to support democracy - is undermined by the cash imperative of capitalism.