Fake News Won’t Kill Democracy

Digital Journalism Is Challenging Journalists and Society, but There Are Reasons to Be Hopeful for the Future

The world now confronts a bitter irony: the democratization of information has proven not to be all that good for democracy.

That provocative observation, offered by moderator and Zócalo Public Square executive editor Andrés Martinez, framed a Zócalo/Democracy International event in Donostia-San Sebastián, a coastal city in the Spanish Basque Country.

“Does the Digitization of Journalism Threaten Democracy?” was held in conjunction with the 2016 Global Forum on Modern Direct Democracy, and drew an audience of journalists, democracy scholars, activists, and elections administrators from six continents to the ornate council chamber, the …