ABSTRACT
In Chapter 1, we argued that journalists in their professional role and news media as a societal institution will remain unequivocally important in twenty-first-century global society, albeit largely for different reasons than in the past; indeed, journalists and their news media will be essential in safeguarding us (1) as citizens, both in our indigenous nation-states as well as worldwide and (2) as consumers in the global marketplace. Rapid and immense changes in communication technology are providing overwhelming amounts of easily accessible information that is inexpensive or free. Much of this information is being ostensibly identified by news gatherers and their disseminators as news, together with the implicit assumption of its truth. Thus, professional news gatherers (journalists) and their institutional news disseminators (news media) will now have even greater importance and value than in the past (1) when news gathering and dissemination processes were far more limited by time and space; (2) when these processes required far greater economic and other resources, particularly in the dissemination of news through the traditional mass media of print, radio, and television; and (3) when citizens and marketplace consumers faced far greater-oftentimes prohibitive-economic costs as well as insurmountable logistical barriers to access information, unlike today when a plethora of news and other information sources are readily available at little or no cost to the consumer.
