Fixing the Future
Understanding and addressing a broken democracy and a shattered press
On March 5, 2026 I gave a talk as part of the Canadian Journalism Foundation Lecture Series at the Hot Docs Ted Rogers Theater in Toronto, Canada. The talk is now available on YouTube.
I’ve had a fortunate, rather accidental career. Five decades in media, technology, and public policy during a period of great change -- from working at the Public Broadcasting Service when it raised the ire of the Nixon administration with gavel-to-gavel coverage of the Watergate hearings to working on Google Search during the era of the Internet.
In 1975, an early mentor told me: “If you’re interested in the future of media, stay close to the technology. It establishes the playing field and ground rules upon which the game of media is played.” That was not obvious then. It should be today.
We face a matrix of challenges in our digital societies. I don’t come with answers as much as I come with more questions. We can then find new answers which will trigger yet more questions across the changing matrix of media and its impact on societies.
It was a warm September Saturday in Manila in 2023. Nobel Prize winner Maria Ressa had asked me to give a speech at her conference called “Tech for Good”. I had known Maria for many years, since she founded the news site Rappler, before she suffered the tyrannical rage of president Duterte, before she and her team feared for their lives, before a storm of criminal and civil suits nearly destroyed her.
I had agreed to address the problem of polarization in our societies. I spoke, as I will today, of how our digital world has dramatically altered public discourse in good ways and bad. I shared insights and ideas that various institutions, including the press and tech companies, might consider in addressing our challenges. Several hundred people gave it their full attention.
The moderator then turned to the audience for questions. A British journalist took the microphone. She was very direct. She conveyed her outrage at my audacity in criticising the press, saying “you and your company, Google, destroyed democracy!”
Her words staggered me. I’ve had considerable experience with confrontational engagements about the challenges of our digital era, including some theatrical experiences testifying before government bodies around the world, including before Canada’s Senate and House of Commons. This was different. This was personal. It accused me of such heinous negligence that our structures of self-governance were left in shambles.
That the journalist’s claim was an incorrect provocation did not matter. It stopped me in my tracks. I struggled with the intense emotion behind her words.
Either I was wrong or this journalist was laboring under a dangerous misunderstanding of how the Internet impacted our societies. I didn’t think I was wrong. Nonetheless, I reconsidered my own analysis, my own efforts, during these decades of tsunamic change.
If I was wrong, I needed to know what was right. If I was right I needed to better explain how we got here so that others might find constructive paths forward.
There is a lot of hand-wringing about the challenges of our digital world. We see the many benefits, but we fear the increase in polarization. We fear our democracies will die. We seek blame and punishment.
However, without a deeper understanding of the causes, we risk the damage of ill-considered solutions. If we reduce the blame to a meme (“blame social media”), we devise solutions that might counter the meme, but not address the true cause.
I studied the evolution of media further, if only for my own tranquility. You might find my analysis useful. You might disagree. Success, for me, is stimulating a rethinking of how we got here, even if your perspective does not change.
We believe in a free press and free expression. We believe in the self-governance of a democracy. We believe a society can tolerate its differences and find constructive compromise.
We believe all of those things. But there’s a paradox in that. History tells us, quite loudly, that the greater the freedom of expression, the greater the fragmentation of perspectives. As a result, the far greater difficulty in achieving compromise, and worse, the far greater difficulty for democracies to thrive.
Our societies are fractured. We see deep fissures of ethnic, religious, and economic conflict. We see a crisis of divisiveness, driven by fear of the other, by fear of the future. Some fears are justified, others are stoked for political gain.
We demonize those we disagree with. We see them as the other. We portray them through simplistic accusatory memes. In doing so, we deepen the divide, we do not bridge it.
We see a failing democracy. We see less willingness to engage in constructive dialog. We see less trust in government. Pew Research says it has declined from 80% in the 1960s to 20% today. More troubling, only 20% of Americans think democracy is a good model for other countries to follow. In Canada that number is 44%. Better, but not by much.
How did we get here? Is this unique to our contemporary digital world? Why do so many people believe democracy has failed? Can democracies survive our digital age? Can democracies survive the Internet?
Democracies live or die on our ability to find common ground, to grow a shared consciousness, to consider complex issues and find compromise. Democracies break when the desire for compromise is lost.
No, the problem did NOT start with the Internet, though the Internet did exacerbate a centuries long trend. There have been disruptions at every step in the evolution of communications, from the printing press to radio to television to the Internet. The reason is this: as our ability to express ourselves becomes easier, we encounter more points of view, and experience more conflict.
Gutenberg’s printing press was as disruptive as we see the Internet today. Yes, it broadened access to information. It also challenged the dominant institutions of the day, governments and the church. Without the press, the religious tracts of Martin Luther would not have spread. Without the press, Martin Luther’s challenge of the Catholic Church would not have triggered the Reformation.
We think of the Reformation as a theological dispute. It was actually a revolution in media, a revolution in media that enabled revolutions.
Like the Internet, the printing press brought the benefit of shared knowledge. Indeed without it, the Industrial Revolution would not have occurred.
Like the Internet, the printing press was also capable of spreading falsehoods. Early printed tracts included religion-infused diatribes against the Muslim world. Mysticism went viral with the early printed word.
There has never been a golden era of truth.
The printing press was only the start. The modern era of electronic communications, radio and television, followed. In the 1950’s, the media ecosystem in the United States was an oligopoly of three commercial networks, public broadcasting, and cities served by one, maybe two, newspapers.
Those outlets offered a selective view of our society. Some say that homogenized view had its benefits, though voices at the margins, whether extreme or simply unheard, were largely out of view. Marginalized voices were shunted to the unlit corners of our culture, to mailed newsletters and niche magazines.
Some say this was the heyday of trusted mass media. But did it present a true sense of our collective psyche? Or was it only a gauze hiding unresolved cultural fractures? Has the Civil War ever ended?
In 1987, the elimination of the Fairness Doctrine triggered the rise of highly partisan talk radio, which formed silos of belief and inflamed them. The same fearful beliefs we see today, were seeded and made viral then.
In the 1980s and 1990s, cable and satellite networks fragmented the media further, spawning fiercely partisan news outlets, each feeding a loyal partisan audience, both leaning toward affirmation rather than information, with fact-based coverage drowned in a flood of opinion and political bias.
Polarization had taken root. That was thirty years ago.
Then the Internet broke the information space into a million shards, from 500 channels to a billion voices. We choose voices that reflect our view of our world, that reflect and confirm our biases — good, bad, or indifferent.
With each advance in communications we see more voices, more fragmentation of beliefs. It is mathematically divisive, and consequentially, politically and culturally divisive.
Our divided society resists compromise. Politicians focus on their core supporters with no desire to reach across the aisle. They define and contrast themselves against those they despise. Compromise is off the table. Compromise is the enemy.
Plato’s prediction that free expression would doom democracy to the appeal of an authoritarian’s simple dictates seems uncomfortably valid. Plato predicted the paradox that a society with unrestricted free expression is vulnerable to the hard-fisted demagogue preaching a simple path forward, while spreading misinformation, inciting hatred, and undermining democratic values.
The Internet elevates both noble speech, which appeals to our better angels, and heinous speech, where outrage and self-righteousness foment a blind hatred of others.
Supporting free expression requires we tolerate speech we find disagreeable, even heinous. Sadly, many believe in free expression only to the extent it’s acceptable and agreeable to them. We demand it be fixed. But how?
The global Center for News, Technology, and Innovation provides objective analysis of public policy affecting the free press and the open Internet. I sit on CNTI’s board, along with Marty Baron and Maria Ressa.
The challenge, we find, is that policies managing misinformation can easily undermine a free press. How do we define acceptable versus unacceptable speech, when problematic speech comes from politicians themselves?
What speech do we disallow? What defines fact versus fiction? What is awful versus lawful? What guidance do we give platforms of communications and amplification? What form of “fake news” policy is not potentially a tool to be misused by others in power? Who decides who decides that?
Managing free expression in an open society is a contradiction in terms.
I’m not suggesting we cannot benefit from smart public policy, but it offers no silver bullets. We in the journalism community must look at our own efforts: rethink how we earn trust, how we guide society toward consensus, how we evolve the role of journalism in strengthening communities.
Let’s consider the question of trust. We say we must build “trust in journalism”. That’s like saying we should generally trust politicians or used car salespeople. Pew Research tells us all three professions have very low ratings of trustworthiness.
Journalism is not monolithic. It varies in quality, approach, and degree of partisanship. We may speak of journalistic ethics, but adherence to those ethics is neither comprehensive nor consistent. There are no applicable laws. Nor should there be in an open society.
What can we do? Might we build news organizations that bridge the gaps of divisiveness, that gain respect from across the political spectrum?
Building trust with a partisan audience eager to hear the confirmation of its biases is easy. That’s not trust. That’s affinity. That’s blind loyalty. Building trust across chasms of divisiveness is hard. That’s called mutual respect.
I’m not a fan of partisan media. By definition, they align with a specific political movement or point-of-view. In a polarized world, partisanship widens the gap, it does not bridge it. It is the problem, not the solution.
Our objective is not to tell people what to think, but rather to offer the tools and information that allow people to draw their own conclusions. My ideal motto: We inform. You decide.
Some question whether we can be objective in such a fiercely partisan world. Objectivity is not about one’s beliefs. Rather, it is a rigorous discipline of critical thinking that pursues facts accurately and fairly, regardless of whether they align with one’s personal beliefs or political agenda. As Marty Baron suggests in his superb book, Collisions of Power, “we should expect journalists to be objective just as we demand that police and judges be objective.”
In the world of media, trust must be constantly re-earned. Hannah Woodworth suggests borrowing from philosophy the frameworks of epistemic arrogance vs. epistemic humility. “Perhaps we should frame the contrast between journalists who assume they are trusted because of their profession, which is epistemic arrogance, and those who recognize the need to interrogate their own credibility and methods, which is epistemic humility.”
How do people develop trust in information?
First, we trust people we know and those endorsed by people we know. We trust people who are more like us. We are tribal. If the head of the tribe says the moon is green, we say yes, to be sure we get a leg of the calf at dinner. Trust is first and foremost a social construct.
Second, people trust in institutions. Maybe their church, their government, a charismatic leader, or a specific news source. But trust in institutions can deteriorate and shift.
Third, through information architecture. Academic and scientific journals are more trusted because of their reinforcing architecture. Each article a fact-based narrative, with footnoting, data transparency, and peer review.
Wikipedia has a rigid architecture of footnoting and a refined fact-based narrative. They build trust by explaining their principles through the structure of their work.
Information architecture in news is problematic. At the macro level, a news brand, like the New York Times, features a mix of fact-based journalism surrounded by ever more opinion. The Times continues to make political endorsements. This architecture of fact-based journalism packaged with partisan expression is counterproductive. How can we build broad-based trust in fact-based journalism if it is surrounded by opinions that suggest otherwise?
Can we reduce the perception of bias by rethinking the information architecture of the article itself, and by respecting the audience we think should respect us. Today, with the capabilities of AI, we can go beyond storytelling and build a deep knowledge architecture around a subject, one that offers a living corpus of reported information that audiences can query and consume.
Janet Coats is a linguistics researcher at the University of Florida. Her research on the coverage of the George Floyd protests found that non-violent protest actions were repeatedly described with words like spark, fuel, erupt, trigger, ignite. Professor Coats poses the question: is the recurrent use of such fiery language a deliberate choice, or is it a subconscious pattern? Might that not influence the perception of political demonstrations? Might that not fuel partisan divide?
Language matters. Politicians know this. They spend lavishly to learn which words and phrases will stimulate the desired response, be it hope or fear.
We, in journalism, should also study linguistics. We should assess the impact of the language we use. We should be cautious in amplifying the false memes and spin propagated by the politicians we cover. Professor Coats is now building tools that reporters might use to assess language bias and strive to build trust across the divide.
We live in a landscape of distorted risk. We vote with unfounded fears of terrorism, crime, or whatever ills the body politic is inclined to make us fear. We fear terrorism despite the fact we are 11,000 times more likely to die of heart disease. We fear crime when we are 28 times more likely to die in a car accident.
Context matters. Lack of context can cause more harm than errors in fact. Maybe it’s unconscious oversight in the blur of “breaking” news, but sometimes it’s not unconscious, it’s fear mongering. Either way, news coverage, absent of fact-based context, is a form of misinformation. Might we close the gap between irrational and rational fear?
Today, we live in a world with artificial intelligence, powerful tools that can impart more knowledge than any single one of us can master. AI will be increasingly valuable to our society in virtually every dimension, from science to industry to journalism.
But we also fear AI being misused. Justifiably so. AI will be misused. Hereto, we need to understand the challenges before we can address them.
Last fall, I attended a Geoffrey Hinton Lecture Series event that focused on a simulation where an AI agent learned the strategy of blackmail to protect itself. What struck me was this was presented as the “evil machine” working against us, as the AI rising up “to kill us all”.
To me that’s an incorrect targeting of blame. How did AI learn blackmail? It learned from us, from humans. It learned from history, from current events that blackmail is our go-to strategy. What is the threat of high tariffs but an application of blackmail?
Yes, we fear AI. But let’s acknowledge the true nature of the problem. The problem is US, not the theoretical evil machine. Given the weaknesses of our species, I’d argue we need AI to save us from ourselves.
Public policy alone will not fully protect us from malicious AI. Good public policy will only be followed by those willing to do so. AI models CAN be trained on ethics, guided toward altruism. But the dark players, the outlaws, won’t do that.
We must be proactive in building AI solutions that counter the dark forces and move our society forward. In journalism, we must individually and collectively learn, adapt, and adopt the superpowers AI can provide.
Let’s talk about rebuilding community and self governance
In 2000, Robert Putnam published the book Bowling Alone, the result of decades of research on the correlation between effective governance and community engagement.
Putnam’s insight was simple but powerful: in regions of ineffective governance people weren’t joining clubs, or going on picnics, or joining bowling leagues. They weren’t getting to know people different from them. They weren’t building social capital.
The causes won’t surprise us: the rise of television; increased suburbanization; the Internet. We are increasingly isolated. We show less empathy. We lose the opportunity to understand the challenges and attributes of people who are not like us. If we don’t engage with the other, we more likely see them from an isolated silo of fear.
How might we bring communities back together? How might we rethink journalism’s role with a mission to strengthen our communities. We can do this.
A recent megastudy led by Stanford said the best way to address divisiveness is to engage the community on non-controversial subjects, which can unify the community and build the trust to address more difficult issues.
This emphasizes the value of going beyond watchdog journalism, and addressing a community’s broad information needs: what’s going on this weekend, who died, who was born, will the storm close the schools. It is this useful day-to-day “service” journalism that provides value, grows trust, and builds a shared reality.
We would consciously celebrate the community’s hopes and dreams, giving focus to its successes, sharing examples of civic empathy.
Yes, we’d do watchdog journalism, explaining local policy issues, exposing criminal behavior, and ferreting out corruption.
But the audience for accountability journalism is small. By addressing a community’s broad information needs, we expose accountability journalism to those who won’t seek it out, thus generating more impact.
Beyond the newsroom, we would seek to engage the community with each other, both virtually and in the real world, to develop a shared consciousness, to build social capital. Can the 60-year decline in community engagement be addressed by renewed approaches to local media?
This is not just an idea. Organizations are exploring such models. The most advanced is right here in Canada, a publisher called Village Media, which has established itself in nearly thirty communities ranging from Sault Ste Marie to more recently in the downtown core of Toronto. (I engaged with Village informally for a decade. I now chair their board.)
Village has proved that such models can be effective and profitably self-sustaining, without a subscription paywall. Village validates that local advertising is both a source of valued community information, and the lifeblood of the local economy. A recent study by Northwestern said the primary motivation for consuming local news is to save money. Yes, knowing what’s on offer from local merchants, or what I might afford to do with my family this weekend, is valuable information.
In addition to its newsrooms, Village has launched a community social network called Spaces that connects people on locally-hosted topics of common interest. To sidestep toxicity, Spaces emphasizes non-controversial topics. Yes, there’s a Space for those maintaining classic cars, or exploring the local music scene, but not a neighborhood watch where a dark hoodie is seen as an intrinsic source of fear.
Spaces connects virtual discussions with real-world engagement. The local brew-pub can host meetups of the woodworking group. The classic car group schedules regular parades. This creates the social capital that Robert Putnam tells us is critical to effective governance.
Let’s take this one step further.
Might we try new models of consensus building? Lawrence Lessig notes that democracies were not always electoral. Historians like Montesquieu and Rousseau tell us that models of electoral representation have their weaknesses. They can lead to autocracy and away from democracy, to what Alexis de Tocqueville called “the tyranny of the majority”, not surprising in an us-versus-them political environment of forever-campaigning and unlimited financial contributions.
An alternate approach, used in Athens and in the French republics, was sortition. These were randomly-selected citizen assemblies that deliberated on key questions of the times. Recent efforts in Europe, like the Bürgerrat Demokratie in Germany, or the citizen assemblies of Ireland, supplemented the Parliamentary process by addressing issues like same-sex marriage and climate change.
Village Media is exploring such models by identifying key community issues, like the opioid crisis in Sault Ste Marie, and activating a protocol that leverages ongoing coverage from the newsroom, and mounting local citizen assemblies called Community Conversations.
Village is, in effect, building a community operating system to enable communities to address their challenges and strengthen themselves. It’s not easy, but we must try.
Our challenges are complex. We can find answers IF we step back and rethink the models from every dimension. We need thoughtful leaders in all sectors -- media, technology, academia, and politics -- to be role models, to be leaders with a more principled view of the common good, leaders who can help us define what IS the common good.
I have long been part of the journalism community. We need to recognize that it is on us to advance our role in society, and in doing so, show the value we expect society to see in us.
There are no messiahs. I trust we know that. Public policy might assist us, but it won’t save us. More likely, it will work against us. Philanthropy might assist journalism, but it won’t save it. It is not a pillar to bet our future on.
I say none of this to be negative. I say this to encourage our focus to be where it needs to be. I say this TO MYSELF every day.
It is on us to fully absorb that free expression means accepting there will be expression we find heinous. It is on us to recognize we cannot and should not force our truths on the truths of others. It does not work. It is on us to accept that while we may think journalism is a public good, there are many who see it as a tool of self interest and manipulation -- whichever side of the political spectrum they might be on. It is on us to rethink what we can do to empower our divided societies to engage and strengthen themselves.
It is on us.
Richard Gingras chairs the board of Village Media and is a co-founder and board member of the global Center for News, Technology, and Innovation. He recently retired from Google after 15 years serving as the company’s global vice president for news, overseeing various product efforts as well as the Google News Initiative. Gingras also engaged on news-related public policy matters around the world. Gingras serves on the boards of several journalism policy related organizations, including the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, the International Center for Journalists, the First Amendment Coalition, the James W Foley Legacy Foundation, the UC Berkeley School of Journalism, and the advisory council of the Frontline documentary series.
Richard Gingras is hitting on the exact problem we’re seeing with AI integration: the 'Woodward-Bernstein' era of trust-us-because-we’re-the-press is dead.
Gingras argues that we need to rethink the architecture of the article to expose the process behind the journalism. I would take that a step further. We can't expose a process that doesn't exist. If the internal newsroom plumbing is still a black box of 'Dev to Production' shortcuts, then transparency just exposes our own technical debt.
We need architectural governance not just to manage the AI slop, but to build the very structured data Gingras is talking about. It is the only way to move from being the 'town scold' to being a trusted, accountable node in the digital ecosystem.
This is an exceptionally good summary of these issues. Personally I think it underplays the algorithmic tipping of the scales towards division and anger for profit - but I recognise not everyone will agree with that! I like the clear definition of objectivity - " a rigorous discipline of critical thinking that pursues facts accurately and fairly, regardless of whether they align with one’s personal beliefs or political agenda'. Absolutely. Out of fashion but more important than ever imo. Thanks from one Richard to another ;)