The specialist amateur: a new threat to the professional journalist (guest-blog)

While listening to the International Journalism Festival panel on Democracy After Journalism, moderated by POLIS Director Charlie Beckett I was challenged by a new question about the future of journalism. Through the enlightening debate over journalism’s watchdog function and impassioned discussions of what democracy should be, an underlying theme arose that begged the question: What happens to journalism when real-life “experts” become journalistic “amateurs”?