Stuart N. Brotman Cites Need for Accountability Without Government Intervention

FOR RELEASE: October 22, 2025

Contact: Richard T. Kaplar
The Media Institute
703-506-8030

Vienna, Va., Oct. 22, 2025 – A major White Paper released today by The Media Institute’s Madison Project suggests that one way to help reverse the public’s plummeting trust in the media may be the creation of a new National News Council.

The Trust Imperative: Reimagining the National News Council is authored by respected researcher and professor Stuart N. Brotman, who serves as Digital Media Laureate and Distinguished Senior Fellow at The Media Institute.

The United States, Brotman says, has reached “a moment of reckoning – a test of whether journalism, as a profession and set of ideals, can persist amid polarized politics, rapidly evolving technology, and generational shifts in expectations and habits of information consumption.”

One way to help restore credibility and accountability in American journalism could be a reimagined version of the original National News Council – a private, nonprofit organization that functioned from 1973 to 1984. Brotman served as a legal staffer on the Council.

A revitalized National News Council 2.0 could become a trusted, independent resource for aggrieved news consumers and wrongly accused journalists alike. It also could lower “litigation risk” and provide an alternative to both government regulation and online hostility, he writes.

Brotman outlines key principles that should guide a modern council and translates these into a set of operational procedures to maximize the council’s impact. He offers a detailed hypothetical example of how a news complaint would be handled by such a council.

“By modeling courage, humility, and openness, a revitalized Council won’t solve every challenge. But it can help journalism in all its forms prove that it deserves the privileges of a free press, and deliver to the public the trust, engagement, and clarity that democracy requires,” Brotman concludes.

The Madison Project: Free Speech and Press in American Democracy is a Media Institute initiative that offers a timely and much-needed assessment of the impact of free speech and press on the future of democracy. Brotman serves as an advisor to the Project. His new White Paper, The Trust Imperative, can be viewed here.

The Media Institute is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization specializing in communications policy and the First Amendment. Visit the Institute at www.mediainstitute.org.

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