Journalism and Democracy in the Digital World

Alexandra is passionate about making journalism and democracy fit for the digital world. As an internationally experienced media manager and coach she can support you if you need a coach or consultant, seasoned keynote speaker, panellist, or author. With more than 25 years of experience in journalism in major news organisations, 15 of these in leadership roles, she has been a coach in WAN-IFRA’s Table Stakes Europe Program for digital transformation from the beginning in 2019, leads the Journalism Innovators Program at Hamburg Media School and is Senior Research Associate with the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford where she served as Director of Leadership Programmes for two years. Before she was Managing Editor of Süddeutsche Zeitung in Munich. She also teaches leadership and strategy as a honorary professor at TU Munich’s TUM School of Management. 

Out now: EBU News Report 2021 – 2022, “What’s Next? Public Service Journalism in the Age of Distraction, Opinion, and Information Abundance“, by Alexandra Borchardt and Felix Simon. Here is an appetizer on video.

Watch Alexandra’s March 2021 TEDx Talk: Reinventing Education For A Connected Society

mail@alexandraborchardt.com

My Opinion

20. September 2022

Free speech in the digital age – a constructive approach

Digital platforms have fundamentally changed the way we communicate, express and inform ourselves. This requires new rules to safeguard democratic values. As the Digital Services Act (DSA) awaits adoption by the EU, Natali Helberger, Alexandra Borchardt and Cristian Vaccari explain here how the Council of Europe’s recently adopted recommendation “on the impact of digital technologies …

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24. June 2022

Jay Rosen: “Journalists have to become more explicitely pro-democracy”

Jay Rosen, journalism professor with New York University, recently joined the Board of the new Bonn Institute for Journalism and Constructive Dialogue. His reasoning: If journalism is to survive in a polarized world, it has to provide perspectives and solutions. In this interview, initially published by Medieninsider, Rosen talks about attacks on democracy, diversity, innovation, …

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9. May 2022

Climate Journalism Needs to Mature from Topic to Mindset

Scenes like this are probably familiar to many: At a preparatory meeting for an event later in the year one participant suggests that it could revolve entirely around climate change reporting. One of the participants, an editor-in-chief, is skeptical: “Won’t this be a little old by then?” The reflexes work, the man has done his …

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15. April 2022

Newsrooms that Care: why diversity and inclusion will define the future of journalism

Before Russia started the war in Ukraine, most efforts in the media industry centred around digital transformation. Let’s get that done and then tackle newsroom diversity; this was a common, if not always openly voiced narrative. Then came 24th February when Putin’s forces invaded Ukraine while starting a propaganda war at home. Rightly so, issues of …

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11. April 2022

Network Like a Pro: Ignore the Rules

On a panel at the 2022 International Journalism Festival in Perugia, Jane Barrett, Global Editor Media News Strategy at Thomson Reuters, made a case for unstructured networking. While Jane knows as we all do that we need to network with a goal in mind at times, I wholeheartedly agreed. Reflecting on the days at the …

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23. February 2022

Interview: There is no willingness to pay in journalism

Digital transformation has put the business models of news organizations under pressure. More than ever media outlets want and need to make their customers pay for journalism and other products. This is a unique chance to build closer connections to audiences and learn about their needs. But when are they willing to pay? For Medieninsider, …

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18. February 2022

Forget About Extinction: The Pandemic Has Been A Media Empowerment Event

Moaning can be a strategy, and the media has been using quite a bit of it in recent years. When the pandemic struck in the spring of 2020, it even felt like there was a competition for the bleakest headline. Who in the industry doesn’t remember Buzzfeed’s reporter Craig Silverman concluding that the coronavirus was …

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13. January 2022

The Moral Dilemma of Paywalls: Why Journalism will Increasingly Move into Two Different Worlds

Selling journalism is no crime. In fact, only a few reporters and editors are ashamed of the fact that much of what they go great lengths to research, edit, and produce can only be consumed for money. After all, even bread is not for free. However, potential users who are stranded at paywalls at times …

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30. November 2021

Interview with Alan Rusbridger: “Journalists Have Allowed Themselves to Become Part of the Culture Wars”

Although news coverage during the pandemic has seen trust in journalism rising, attacks on media have increased at the same time — not only in Germany. Alan Rusbridger knows this very well. In an interview, the journalist, who served as editor-in-chief of the British Guardian for 20 years and has just started as editor of …

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14. September 2021

Desperately Seeking Youngsters – Seven Insights About a Demanding Audience

This phrase keeps popping up regularly in editorial meetings: Everyone is presenting their topics, and then one of the bosses throws it in: “We have to do something for young people.” Perplexity escapes the eyes of older participants. Maybe something about Tik Tok? About hip music or the approaching high school graduation? Everyone younger than …

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28. July 2021

What if Facebook and Google left your country tomorrow?

Large tech companies like Google and Facebook have significant power in the digital media landscapes of countries around the world, and it can sometimes be hard to imagine what online life would be like without them. This article I had the pleasure to be part of is a contribution from the participants on a panel …

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10. May 2021

In the fun business – Journalism that wants to reach young audiences needs to work on humour

Journalism is serious business. Just recently, a Greek investigative reporter was shot dead outside his home in a suburb of Athens. Even in Germany journalists are increasingly being physically attacked, which is why Reporters Beyond Borders downgraded the country’s state of press freedom from “good” to “satisfactory” in its latest report. Especially in Central and …

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27. February 2021

Don’t mind the gap: Automated translation could revolutionize journalism – but how?

Newsrooms can fight “fake news” by identifying it, warning about it and correcting it. But they can also fight it with so much trustworthy, factual and well researched journalism that it drowns out the lies. For most of them it’s not an either/or decision, of course; they try to do both. The European Broadcasting Union …

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1. February 2021

Optimism is underrated – What will remain when Marty Baron leaves the Washington Post

Even on the European side of the Atlantic, Marty Baron may be a household name to some outside the journalistic microcosm. The reason is “Spotlight.” In the movie, which won an Oscar in 2015, a young, new editor-in-chief drives an investigative team at the Boston Globe newspaper to top performance. The reporters finally succeed in …

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15. January 2021

The Power of the Middle – Not even media leaders themselves think that they have the best ideas

Middle management in companies more often than not suffers from its infamous reputation. They are branded as rule-abiding busy bees, nitpickers who stick to processes just as much as they stick to their own chairs, managers, definitely not leaders. If they were, they would have long been promoted to the top – or so it …

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6. November 2020

Beyond the headline race: How the media must lead in a polarized world

When US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg succumbed to cancer recently, the headline race was on once again. Instead of pausing for a moment to honor a great personality for her leadership and stamina in the quest for justice, most of the news media didn’t miss a beat. Who would President Donald Trump nominate …

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9. July 2020

Going digital means going diverse – not only but especially for newsrooms

Demographically uniform newsrooms have been producing uniformly homogeneous content for decades, and the lack of diversity in the media has actually worsened in recent decades. The most likely reason is that industry leaders continue to regard the digital transformation as a matter of technology and process, rather than of talent and human capital. MUNICH – …

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1. May 2020

Job Title: Robot Reporter – How Automation Could Help Newsrooms Survive

These days it always raises a bit of suspicion, when companies advertise their products naming them something “Corona”. There is no crisis without crisis winners after all, and not everyone deserves to win. Do editors really need “Corona Watch”, for example? The newsdesk tool automatically evaluates important sources on the crisis situation and alerts editors …

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1. April 2020

Good-bye, Print – Time to Go All Out for Saving Journalism

The printed newspaper has been on life-support for a while, but chances are it might not survive the corona crisis. Now it is critical that the journalism doesn’t get dragged down with it – at a time when it is essential for survival. Clayton Christensen did not live to see the corona crisis. The professor …

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23. January 2020

Getting Real About Talent and Diversity – Ten Recommendations

Europe’s newsrooms are still predominantly white and middle class, though societies are changing at rapid speed. How to better reflect all members of the increasingly diverse European societies within Europe’s Media and public sphere is crucial. Additionally, diversity is a business case. In digital transformation it is essential to gain access to new audiences. For …

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10. January 2020

Get out of the office and talk to people!

Every year Nieman Lab at Harvard University asks journalists and journalism researchers around the globe about trends in the industry and what they predict for the year to come. This is what I envisioned for 2020: News deserts were yesterday. In the year to come, journalism will rediscover the communities it’s meant to serve. Several …

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2. January 2020

Media Literacy is Critical, But We Need More Democracy Literacy

Free, credible, and independent news media are a pillar of any functioning democracy, essential to enable voters to make informed decisions and to hold elected leaders accountable. Given this, media literacy must be pursued within a broader campaign to improve democratic literacy. OXFORD – Depending on where you get your news, your view of how …

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14. September 2019

What’s wrong with the News?

The rise of data analytics has made journalists and their editors confident that they know what the people want. Why, then, did almost one-third of respondents to the Reuters Institute’s latest Digital News Report say that they regularly avoid news altogether? The British public can’t get enough news about Brexit – at least, that’s what …

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15. July 2019

Are Journalists Today’s Coal Miners?

As the media is in distress, being a journalist is becoming less attractive for many. Will the industry loose out on the best and brightest? And how does this influence the declared desire to make newsrooms more diverse? Read our new report on talent and diversity in newsrooms in the United Kingdom, Germany and Sweden, …

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15. July 2019

How – and How Not – to Restore Trust in Media

In an age of unprecedented access to information, true and otherwise, people of all ages must improve their media literacy. But that does not let media organizations off the hook. With the help of an aware and critical audience, they must monitor themselves and one another, as they have done in the past. OXFORD – …

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15. June 2019

Two years of bringing media leaders together – this is what I learned

For two years I’ve been in charge of the leadership programmes at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford, a home for those who care deeply about journalism and its role in democracy. Listening to and conversing with media leaders and committed journalists from all over the world has shed …

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15. June 2019

Leadership matters, men matter, but culture matters even more

Why the BBC’s 50:50 initiative has been a success. It could have been a reporter’s feast, that BBC Director General Tony Hall turned up with a black eye when he opened the BBC’s 50:50 project celebration. This is an initiative that has been successful in bringing up “female” content in many of the participating programs …

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15. June 2019

Do you really have to be a brand? Don’t worry, some of the best leaders aren’t

Social media news feeds constantly tout the necessity of turning ourselves into a brand but if we don’t want to can there still be an upside?  Women in particular are often asked to position themselves as brands. We are told that this will enable us to circumvent the hierarchies and glass ceilings that have prevented …

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29. April 2019

Power and pin money: Time for a new deal between big tech and the media

There’s a clear irony in engaging in a lively debate about the impact of big tech companies on journalism as part of a festival largely financed by Google and Facebook. The recent International Journalism Festival in Perugia offered more than one example of this. Welcome to the new media universe, in which powerful platform companies …

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15. March 2019

Journalism’s Risky Tech Attraction

There is nothing wrong with using technology to solve problems, including those created by technology, or to give a company a competitive edge. But not even the most advanced tech will save the media industry if there is no regard for the people – journalists and audiences – who are asked to use it. OXFORD – …

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15. March 2019

Don’t stop gender diversity in the news media before it has even started

A new report by the Women’s Media Center on gender diversity tells a discouraging story — across all media types — online, print and broadcast — men get roughly 60 percent of the bylines and women only 40 percent.  With some news, one would prefer it was misinformation. But the new Status of Women in …

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9. February 2019

The rise of the urban class – What the death of local journalism means for society

The rift between big metropolitan areas and the countryside has grown. Now the urban class is pitted against everything from deep suburbia to the last provincial backwater — and journalism has something to do with it. The political divide used to be between the haves and the have-barely-enoughs. For more than a century, social class …

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25. January 2019

London Calling Brexit: A view from the outside in

Looking at the Brexit mess from outside of the UK, it doesn’t take much for observers to conclude at least one thing: the British don’t understand the EU. Leavers display a downright hostility through their portrayal of the EU as some bureaucratic, money gobbling behemoth, determined to cripple Britain’s autonomy, but this completely misses the …

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5. January 2019

Why the news media isn’t dead yet – seven reasons for hope

There are plenty of reasons to talk about the media as an industry in crisis. Business models are eroding, political pressures on journalists are increasing, and the need for cultural transformation puts newsrooms under severe strain. However, giving up is no option. So as we approach 2019, let’s focus on the strengths of the industry and …

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5. January 2019

It’s not social media, it’s us!

It’s not technology that is bringing about populism and political outcomes many of us don’t agree with. It’s people. Unsuprisingly, establishing a causal relationship between the means of communication and today’s political landscape is quite common these days. Thanks to intense news media coverage, the general public is getting more media-savvy. People are discussing algorithms, …

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5. January 2019

The mundane assault on news media

The killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was a gruesome reminder that the media is under attack. And yet the greatest risk to the profession is not contract killers carrying bone saws; rather, it is mundane concerns like budget cuts and intensifying demands on reporters. OXFORD – The brutal torture and murder of the US-based …

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12. November 2018

In Institutions We Trust: What Is Quality Journalism?

Back in the day, it was all about pornography. “I know it when I see it”, United States Supreme Court Justice Potter Steward argued in the ground-breaking verdict Jacobellis vs. Ohio in 1964, a ruling that settled much about what was legal and what was not in matters of show and tell. “I know it …

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1. November 2018

Connected but not equal

One common assumption about the internet goes like this: because everybody can access information, news, and knowledge freely, the web is making society more democratic. So much for the fiction; the fact is that the opposite might be true. At least this is what a recently published study by the Reuters Institute for the Study of …

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11. October 2018

We Can Use Robots But We Still Need Journalists

The Panama Papers investigation was a momentous task. The multi-award-winning international collaboration led by German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung was mainly about manpower. Reporters spent an entire year sifting through data, looking for anomalies and following up on sources. But did it really need to be so laborious? Some journalists who are hopeful about the advancement …

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11. October 2018

Can political Tinder save democracy?

How can we protect democracy if we only speak to Siri or Alexa but not each other? Democracy is based on the premise that everyone can express themselves, but it also implies other people are listening. Maybe it’s time for a real-life conversation. In the language of journalists, you might call this a scoop: getting the German President to preside over a …

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11. October 2018

Learning to read all over again

It used to take quite an effort to manipulate people. Considerable amounts of skill, knowledge, engagement and financial means were needed to sway public opinion, influence elections, create a popular uprising or sell low-value products at high cost. Not any longer. And now social media can do it for everybody. Creating divisive content, lies, fake …

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11. October 2018

Journalism’s Comeback

After years of bad news for the news business, recent data suggest that consumer confidence is slowly returning. To sustain this trend, journalists must continue producing quality content, and governments should explore new ways to support those who cannot pay. OXFORD – After years of ill health, the news industry is finally showing signs of …

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3. August 2018

Democracy Doesn’t Come For Free

In a fast-paced world  attacked by rampant capitalism from one side and authoritarianism from the other, the institutions of democracy must be nourished. Public service media is one way to do it. Imagine if there was a war and there were no pictures of it. This is the thought that comes to mind when visiting the …

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3. August 2018

Melania’s Jacket or What’s Wrong With Media Dynamics

Don’t worry, this won’t be another think-piece interpreting Melania Trump’s choice of wardrobe, this will be about media. A very unhealthy part of current media dynamics, that is. For those of you who don’t live on this news planet and missed it, I am referring to Melania Trump’s visit to one of the infamous migrant children’s …

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3. August 2018

Get the Data and Get it Done: How to Tackle Gender Imbalance in Newsrooms

A comparative study by the European Journalism Observatory (EJO) revealed what has been obvious all along, but now it has some tough numbers to back it up. 41% of all stories published in eleven countries’ major newspapers were written by men and only 23% by women. This is not just another report about gender inequality, …

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3. August 2018

A Crisis Playbook for Big Tech

There are many similarities between the trust deficit that still plagues the financial sector and the one that is beginning to undermine technology companies. Firms like Amazon, Facebook, and Google should study five lessons that most banks never learned after the 2008 crisis. OXFORD – The predictions were wrong: the global economy didn’t collapse after …

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3. April 2018

Our Digital Futures: Where Europe Could Come In

The loss of freedom in the digital age seemed inevitable even before the Cambridge Analytica scandal with its massive breach of data privacy. Citizens appear destined to live in one of these two worlds: Number one is the world of monopoly capitalism, where they are primarily regarded as customers. These customers’ sole purpose is it …

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27. March 2018

Free Speech in the Filter Age

In a democracy, the rights of the many cannot come at the expense of the rights of the few. In the age of algorithms, government must, more than ever, ensure the protection of vulnerable voices, even erring on victims’ side at times. OXFORD – Germany’s Network Enforcement Act – according to which social-media platforms like …

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11. January 2018

Making Journalism Great Again

OXFORD – In the debate over the future of journalism, “fake news” has taken center stage, with storylines featuring a ranting American president, Russian communication “bots,” and betrayal and subterfuge competing for public attention. But in an era of diminishing profits and shrinking audiences, is fake news really the biggest threat that traditional media face? …

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6. January 2018

A Brief Guide to Newsroom Innovation

With business models under pressure and competition for audience and advertising dollars increasing, media organisations inevitably search for innovative new ways to attract audiences, tell stories or earn revenue. Yet newsrooms often rush into innovation projects, expecting journalists to participate, or even to lead them, without explaining why, what the project is for, or how …

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