Editor’s Note
The past year has been traumatic. Now, as vaccines are administered and businesses reopen, the world turns to renewal and rebuilding. The journalism industry is no exception. Since last spring, for all the excellent pandemic reporting we’ve seen—coverage that saved lives—the media’s shortcomings have also been on painful display: the inability to focus on multiple, interconnected stories; a willingness to be distracted by demagogues and disinformation; the shameful silencing and sidelining of audiences and colleagues of color. We now face a choice between an incremental return to where we left off and a more fundamental transformation of what we’re about. “What Is Journalism?”—this digital edition of the magazine—takes us down that second path, and we hope it will raise fundamental questions for you, too. It is the most ambitious digital project we’ve…