The newsroom is a nest of believers if we include believers in journalism itself. There is a religion of the press. There is a also priesthood. And there can be a crisis of faith. . . .
We’re headed, I think, for schism, tumult and divide as the religion of the American press meets the upheavals in global politics and public media that are well underway. (Not to mention the roaring force of the market.) Changing around us are the terms on which authority can be established by journalists. . . . The Net is opening things up, shifting the power to publish around. Consumers are becoming producers, readers can be writers. Consensus is breaking apart on definitions of The Good in journalism. And that may be a healthy turn for citizens and for our future experiments with a free press.
Indeed.