As we move into the new era of mobile journalism, following the news on Blackberrys and watching newscasts on iPads, at any time and anywhere, exciting new possibilities emerge for journalism. Real-time technology changes the flow of information not only in the democratic societies of the West, but impacts also and possibly to an even greater extent on developing countries and countries in transition. At the same time, the future of journalism is less clearly resolved than ever before. As the reading and viewing habits of the publics change, traditional business models in journalism collapse and media markets strive under the burden of tottering economies and shifting advertising patterns. What will journalism be like in 2020? Its outline is unclear; however, even though websites, blogs and social networks provide us with endless sources of information and opinion, we will need journalism even more than before as either or both a gatekeeper and a sense-maker. Also our need, in an era of international media concentration, ever-growing lobbying – from the nuclear industries to Attac – and increasingly sophisticated public relations, to monitor journalistic independence and quality will be greater. But will internal structural regulators, for example, the traditional press councils, as trade organizations of journalists and media owners, be able to fulfill this task – or will the monitoring of media accountability become in the future a grassroots’ activity of a multitude of citizens on Facebook and Twitter? And when we think about the future of journalism and media accountability – can we
learn from other countries’ experiences with media accountability?