Nikki Usher on 'News for the Rich, White, and Blue,' and how place and power distort journalism in America

Reliable Sources

CNN

News

3.4 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 8 July 2021

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Nikki Usher shares insights from her new book "News for the Rich, White, and Blue: How Place and Power Distort American Journalism." Usher, an associate professor at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, says "quality journalism" is increasingly reaching affluent and urban consumers at the expense of others. Plus, "the people who still trust American journalism are overwhelmingly liberal," she says. But the journalism itself "really perpetuates existing power structures, leaving a lot of those 'blue' readers fundamentally unsatisfied." She discusses how subscription business models exacerbate these trends and offers some "proposals," like making journalism "more inclusive." To learn more about how CNN protects listener privacy, visit cnn.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	American journalism is changing.
0:05.0	That much we can all agree on.
0:07.7	We all see and feel it happening.
0:10.7	But in what ways do place and power distort journalism?
0:17.3	Is the news these days mostly being produced for the rich, white, and blue?
0:23.5	Those are some of the questions for this week's reliable sources podcast.
0:27.1	So let's cue the music.
0:29.1	I'm Brian Stelter and this weekly podcast is our chance to go in depth with media leaders
0:34.7	and newsmakers talking about how the news gets made.
0:39.5	In my reference, at the very beginning to the rich, white, and blue, comes from a brand
0:44.9	new book that will make you think differently about the news business.
0:50.8	The book was released just this week by Columbia University Press.
0:55.3	This title is news for the rich, white, and blue.
1:00.2	The subtitle is How Place and Power Distort American Journalism.
1:04.9	And the author is Nikki Usher, an associate professor at the University of Illinois
1:09.4	or Banish campaign in the College of Media's journalism department.
1:13.7	Her research focuses on news production in this always changing digital environment.
1:19.9	In the past, she's also been a fellow at the TAL Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia
1:24.0	University.
1:25.0	She's been a fellow at the Reynolds Institute.
1:27.3	And as it so happens, we go way back because I popped up in the first book she wrote, which
1:33.4	was titled Making News at the New York Times.
	...

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