UGA Journalism Professor Emeritus: WaPo Ad A Start, But Industry Change Needed, Too

If you were watching the Super Bowl on Sunday, you might have seen or heard the ad from The Washington Post. In a first-of-its-kind campaign, the ad — voiced by actor Tom Hanks — talked about the value of fact-based journalism and the threats to it.

But the ad came after a couple of weeks in which journalism outlets of all kinds laid off, or bought out, thousands of journalists.

That raised the question of whether the most immediate dangers to journalists come from external sources — or the internal decisions made by the people in charge of media outlets.

David Hazinski is a former NBC correspondent who taught journalism for 30 years at the University of Georgia’s Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communications, where he is now a professor emeritus.

Hazinski is the CEO of Intelligent Media Consultants. He argues that The Washington Post ad is a good start in the battle to win more public support for fact-based journalism, but he says the industry itself has to make some internal changes in order to prove to people they can trust the stories they read, see and hear.

Hazinski spoke with WABE’s Denis O’Hayer on “All Things Considered.”