Battling the Stagnation of Journalism
How revisiting Service Journalism can push back on Client and Algo Journalism
“News is what somebody somewhere wants to suppress; all the rest is advertising.”
Lord Northcliffe
Northcliffe always struck me as a bit of a chump. Venal and arrogant. But he arguably shaped the modern press. I wonder what he'd make of it now.
Because journalism is in a bit of a crisis, financially, morally and structurally. Journalists have never been loved. They always ranked near to estate agents for admired professions. But now trust in news is full on collapsing, with audiences splintering into echo chambers, and even the idea of truth itself feels increasingly fragile.
The core issue? Journalism has forgotten who it serves.
“The sole aim of journalism should be service.”
Mahatma Ghandi
Ghandi was a good man - and had good views on service - so I take his words quite seriously!
So here I am, looking at the modern media ecosystem, and trying to work out what’s gone wrong. I think I can identify three models of journalism, each waxing or waning - service Journalism, Client Journalism, and Algorithmic Journalism. Each defines its success differently. Each has a different master. And each plays a distinct role in the fraying of our shared understanding of the world.
I first stumbled upon service journalism a few years ago in my wanderings around the world of service. It's a proper “thing”, and I can remember there being quite a lot of it about. So we'll start there. Because it's waning is the first part of the problem.
1. Service Journalism: Journalism as a Public Good
Service journalism is often misunderstood as soft content: “how to clean your oven,” “top 10 travel hacks.” But that’s not what it's about. At its best, service journalism can be radical, civic, and essential.
It’s journalism designed to help people navigate life, not just observe it. To help them progress! From ignorance to awareness I suppose. It respects the reader’s agency. It answers the question: What do I need to know, and what can I do with it?
“To be a service, news must be concerned with outcomes rather than products."
Jeff Jarvis
Another bit of my personal history aligns here. I studied American Studies at university. And was lucky enough to read quite widely. Only now have I managed to lace together a few things I read, which point to service journalism’s historical roots:
In the early 1900s, journalist like Ida Tarbell (Standard Oil exposé, 1904) and Upton Sinclair (The Jungle, 1906) exposed corporate abuse and unsafe food systems. This wasn’t entertainment, it was journalism that led to antitrust action and food safety reforms.
Consumer Reports, founded in 1936, helped Americans make better purchases and avoid scams, remaining ad-free and data-driven to this day.
The civil rights press, like Jet magazine, delivered critical information to Black communities often ignored by mainstream media.
All of these are good early models for service journalism. Journalism that sought to liberate minds and build movements. There are plenty of more up to date examples eg The Guardian’s climate change coverage, which offers not just scientific updates but tools for individual and collective action.
Service journalism is journalism as a survival tool. But because it doesn't chase virality or scandal, it's often overlooked by funders and media bigwigs. It feels sadly old fashioned now.
“The purpose of service journalism is to help people live lives that are more efficient, more productive, healthier, and smarter.”
Tim Herrera, New York Times
2. Client Journalism: Journalism Captured by Power
Client journalism, by contrast, doesn’t serve the public - it serves clients. These may be political insiders, corporate advertisers, institutional donors, or celebrity handlers. It's been on the rise for a while now. Back in the early 2000s I remember hearing that PRs outnumbered journalists 10 to 1. I imagine it's much higher now, but even back then that was huge.
The problem with this imbalance is that it breeds both corruption and dependence.
When access becomes currency, truth becomes negotiable. Coverage is shaped not by public need, but by client requirements. The result is sanitized interviews, puff pieces, withheld stories, or partisan distortions.
“Client journalism is when newspapers and broadcasters betray the public by failing to scrutinize the powerful because they depend on them.”
Peter Oborne, former Telegraph columnist, who famously resigned after his paper refused to run negative coverage of HSBC due to ad contracts
When journalists become dependent on clients for leaks, funding, or influence, the audience becomes secondary. The public isn’t served; it’s sold.
3. Algo Journalism: Journalism for the Machine
But hey, it got worst! Enter the algorithm.
Algo journalism doesn’t answer to a public, a PR or a patron - it answers to the machine. Journalists spend way more time chasing performance metrics: clicks, shares, time-on-page. It’s not so much corrupted as it is optimized to death.
“The big change in our relationship to the news these days is how little enters our world that is different from what came yesterday. A media architecture created to give us more and more and more of what we thought we wanted turns out to give us less and less.”
Dahlia Lithwick, Slate Magazine
Journalism has been almost entirely captured by the attention economy. What matters here is:
Outrage over nuance
Emotion over context
Engagement over enlightenment
It’s not necessarily fake. But its truth is flattened, repackaged, and weaponized for virality. It’s why politicians sound so generic and flat. And why clickbait headlines are crafted to hack psychology. Entire pieces are written to rank on Google or trend on TikTok.
As platforms like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter became gatekeepers, journalism started serving algorithms instead of citizens.
All risk is removed. Everything is deadened. It all becomes boring and bland.
The problem with that is, a noisy “honest” voice can cut through, regardless of whether they have anything meaningful to say: trump, farage. They are masters of standing out in a flat desert. And people flock to them in their thirst for authenticity and “truth telling”. Makes me sick up my mouth a bit.
Side-by-side view
Why Truth Is Dying
Each model treats truth differently:
Client Journalism bends it.
Algo Journalism buries it - if it doesn’t perform.
Service Journalism tries to build it.
Any attempt to serve something bigger than the algo gets lost.
The slow death of truth isn’t caused by lies alone. It’s caused by the erosion of incentives to tell the truth.
When journalism serves access, not accountability—when performance trumps public need—then truth becomes a by-product, not a purpose.
A Way Forward
Re-invest in public-interest journalism. Fund models that prioritize service: non-profit newsrooms, civic media, member-funded reporting.
Redesign platforms to reward quality, not just clicks. Integrate trustworthiness into discovery algorithms.
Teach readers to ask: Who is this serving? What am I being asked to do with this information?
These are the only ones I really trust or see as the better exemplars of service journalism - I’d be interested in others readers turn to:
Private Eye - very cynical, but with a strong heritage of speaking truth to power. Funny too
The Fence - no ads, just long form writing
The Guardian - run be The Scott Trust according to clear principles, although have had a tough few years navigating a sustainable “free” commercial model
The BBC - literally a “public service broadcaster”, although got lost in trying to achieve “balance” at the price of truth, and also managing recent infiltration by right wing leadership
The New World (used to be The New European) - obviously quote polarised on the Europe / Brexit issue, and the left wing bias might not be right for all, but provides a good broad perspective
A quick sidebar on why I think so many news outlets are branded as “left wing biased”. It’s because true service journalism seeks to serve the public good - to help a readership / population move from ignorance to understanding. So journalists that follow this path usually end up being more progressive, and so more “left wing”. I think it’s because this mission conflicts with where power now sits - which is a long way from you and me, with groups and individuals who definitely don’t want you and me to organise around new ideas. I don’t know - I’m one episode in to Adam Curtis’ new series Shifty, which I suspect will help me understand how this has happened.
[Service journalism] is about connecting the news to our readers’ lives. OK, so now they know what’s going on, but what can they do about it? How do they use the information we provide to live better lives? Make smarter decisions? How can they better understand what’s happening and feel more engaged in the world because of it?
Megan Griffith-Greene, Philadelphia Inquirer
Choose What You Read Carefully
For now though, it’s a personal choice. So I guess I’d recommend that, next time you read a headline or watch a video, ask:
Is this helping me - or selling me?
Is this informing me - or performing for me?
Am I the audience - or the product?
And as ever - the old perennial - follow the money. Who is making money from your attention to this article?
In my view only journalism rooted in service gives you healthy and nourishing information, and only a revitalisation of it can revive public trust and help truth survive the PR and algorithmic storm.