Journalism and Jim Crow shows that, at moments of intense political crisis in U.S. history, news executives and journalists have far too often worked hand-in-glove with white supremacist political and business interests. They sometimes even operated as straight-out political actors who helped build anti-democratic, near totalitarian societies.

We expect journalism to serve the public good, to be the guardrail of democracy.  And it often is, as we witnessed throughout the Trump administration as independent, reality-based news institutions held Trump and his allies to account. But when powerful journalists and news institutions join hands with dark, illiberal forces, democracy faces an existential threat.

The history we tell in Journalism and Jim Crow helps us understand that our current moment is not an anomaly. Fox News and other right-wing news outlets continue to collaborate with Trumpism, a right-wing political movement, to corrupt electoral and democratic processes, promote white nationalism, and pollute public discourse and understanding with disinformation, propaganda, and conspiracy theories. Their goal? Defend and maintain white elite political and economic power.

Will pluralistic liberal democracy in the United States endure? Or is the great experiment in democracy coming to an end? Can journalism help us achieve the country of our highest civic ideals?

We hope the broad public, teachers, students, and journalists will read Journalism and Jim Crow and learn about the importance of the press in political, social, and economic conflict and change in the past and in our own moment. Much is at stake.