Sissel McCarthy

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Press freedom is under attack, and not just recently. It has been on a steady decline for the last decade, according to the World Press Freedom Index, which ranks 180 countries every year. In 2022, only […]

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It feels like a new conspiracy theory is popping up every day.  Just look at the social media posts after Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin collapsed during the game against the Cincinnati Bengals. Doctors […]

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We’ve all heard the saying, “There are two sides to every story.” And sometimes, that’s true in journalism—and life. But balance is not an element of journalism and certainly not its goal. While reporte […]

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Representation is a huge challenge for newsrooms, and you’re right– they need to do better. We talked about why the racial makeup of a newsroom matters in a post earlier this year, but you bring up another […]

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That depends on whom you ask, but a lot of U.S. adults think so, according to a new poll by Pew Research. More than 90 percent of conservative Republicans believe social media companies are censoring […]

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Fact-checkers are on the frontline in the war against misinformation, and their ranks are growing as falsehoods flood the internet. The number of fact-checkers has doubled since 2016, with nearly 400 now […]

America’s partisan divide is becoming more pronounced, and cable news is stoking these divisions even more than social media, according to a new study that tracked the news consumption of tens of thousands of p […]

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Journalists get this question—or lament—all the time from people who think the news offers too much opinion and not enough fact. More than two-thirds of Americans say they see too much opinion and bias in […]

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The personalization of news is a permanent feature of our information ecosystem that comes with some benefits and many challenges. News consumers are often overwhelmed by the amount of news they’re e […]

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Not enough. Journalists around the world are targets of both real and online attacks, and impunity for these crimes is on the rise.

Look no further than Ukraine to see journalists risking their lives to […]

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Public trust in facts has been on the decline for about two decades, and it’s taken a toll. Americans no longer agree on a common set of facts. Many can’t tell the difference between a fact and an o […]

It is time to sound the alarm.

Press freedom is under attack by a thousand cuts – and not just in the usual countries known for their media censorship.

The World Press Freedom Index is down again this y […]

Distinguished Lecturer Sissel McCarthy talks about her transition from the newsroom to the classroom, anonymous sources and why a career in journalism is still a worthy calling in this interview with […]

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The short answer is, it depends. A reporter who uses anonymous sources has a much heavier lift when it comes to establishing a story’s credibility. All reporters would prefer to use named sources in their s […]

Although transparency has long been a fundamental principle of journalism, the need for a more expansive interpretation of this practice has never been greater.  Record low levels of trust in the news media, […]

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One of the biggest challenges news consumers face today is distinguishing news from other media that does not embody journalism’s three defining attributes: Verification, independence and accountability. […]

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Trust in the news media is in short supply these days. According to the 2021 Edelman Trust Barometer shared with Axios, confidence in news sources around the world has fallen sharply. The poll conducted in […]

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Section 230 doesn’t have many admirers in Washington, D.C., and the need to change it may be one of the few things President Biden and former President Trump agree on—albeit for very different r […]