It’s no secret the news industry is in dire circumstances, with an estimated “90,000 workers los[ing] their jobs last year in the newspaper, magazine and book publishing industry.” The news signals a severe crisis, yet Nation contributors Robert McChesney and John Nichols, authors of the recently released The Death and Life of American Journalism, appear on Democracy Now discussing solutions to the industry’s troubles that will spark a “media revolution.”

McChesney and Nichols propose government should intervene by providing subsidies for media outlets. “The business model that has supported journalism for the last 125 years in this country is disintegrating,” says McChesney. “There will be some advertising, but much less. There will be some circulation revenues, but much less. And if we’re going to have journalism in this country, it’s going to require that there be public subsidies to create an independent, uncensored, nonprofit, non-commercial news media sector.”

Beyond public subsidies, McChesney and Nichols suggest creating a News AmeriCorps for young journalists, or create supercharge funding–similar to European levels of public media. Throughout, they argue the need for journalism as a mode of democracy and civic engagement. Nichols says: “What we want to talk about now is how we create a new media system that works and sustains democracy.”

–Clarissa Leon