What is Valuable Journalism? Three Key Experiences and Their Challenges for Journalism Scholars and Practitioners*

Abstract

News organizations increasingly depend on subscriptions, donations, memberships and audience engagement figures, calling up the question of what kind of journalism audiences would find so valuable that they might be willing to pay for it, in money or attention. To answer this question, I have fleshed out the concept of Valuable Journalism by performing a meta-analysis of the results of twenty-two audience research projects (2005–2020) involving 3068 informants. By focussing on what audiences experience as valuable journalism, rather than on its content or approach, I will demonstrate how Valuable Journalism crystallized over the years into three key experiences: Learning something new, Getting recognition and Increasing mutual understanding. In the final part of the paper, I address the challenges raised by Valuable Journalism for practicing journalists and journalism scholars.