Media Nation

The 24/7 cable news cycle, politically-charged acceptance speeches at Hollywood award shows, and an errant presidential Twitter feed have made it abundantly clear that media is playing an enormous role in American politics.

But its influence isn't new. Stretching from advocate to government insider, mass media has long broken away from the narrow mandate of objective reporting and grown into a complex ecosystem that participates in the political conversation, much to the chagrin of many of its consumers.

According to a new anthology, Media Nation, a full century of media history has championed an unthreatened freedom of speech, but when media bias becomes a campaign platform and "alternative facts" force a new press standard, is media as we know it going extinct? With the apparent explosion of fake news and instant Internet dispatches filed without fact check, is journalism losing the fight for truth?

Join New America NYC for a conversation on the deep political history of the fourth estate and on the immense influence—and scrutiny—with which it must contend.

INTRODUCTION

Craig Newmark @craignewmark
Founder, craigslist and the Craig Newmark Foundation

PARTICIPANTS

Shani O. Hilton @shani_o
Head of U.S. News, BuzzFeed

Emily Bell @emilybell
Director, Tow Center for Digital Journalism, Columbia University

Nina Burleigh @ninaburleigh
National Politics Correspondent, Newsweek

Julian Zelizer @julianzelizer
Professor of History and Public Affairs, Princeton University
Fellow, Political Reform, New America
Co-editor, Media Nation: The Political History of News in Modern America