ABSTRACT
Ending the exploration of the centers’ newsroom role, this chapter concludes that the university nonprofits, in spite of their production of independent, quality reporting, do not represent a solution to the journalism crisis. Being small, dependent, and fragile, the centers cannot substitute the production of the commercial news industry. Through their solid, high-quality reporting, they can, however, function as “ideological lighthouses” in a field struggling with ongoing challenges and change. The chapter also concludes that investigative reporting, due to its high symbolic value, is not especially threatened. In the new networked news institution, the somewhat grey, everyday journalism – situated between investigative, Pulitzer-winning reporting and kitty videos – seems to be the biggest looser.
