Process Journalism

Process journalism is a concept Anthony DeRosa wrote about in a 2015 blog post, "Transparency and Process Journalism," later expanded into an op-ed for the LA Times on online corrections and accountability — see Selected Writing.

The argument

DeRosa drew a distinction between two approaches to publishing news: a traditional model built on directly sourced, personally verified reporting, and an increasingly common model built on aggregating and re-reporting other outlets' sourcing, which he argued produced less reliable and less accountable journalism. His proposed fix wasn't to abandon either model but to make the evolution of a story visible to readers — letting them see what changed, when, and why, rather than quietly editing a published piece and hoping no one noticed.

He pointed to tools like NewsDiffs as a partial solution and argued that publishers should let readers toggle on a "track changes" view of a story, or follow a story to get alerted whenever it's updated or corrected. He framed this transparency as a way to rebuild reader trust and loyalty at a moment when social platforms, not single publications, were becoming the primary way people encountered news.

Connection to Circa

DeRosa noted that Circa, the mobile news startup where he served as Editor-in-Chief, had already built a version of this: stories that updated over time as "atoms" of information rather than fixed articles, with readers able to follow a story and get notified of changes.

See also

• Anthony DeRosa
• Circa
• Selected Writing