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Driving through Alabama on Presidents Day, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg swung by the newsroom of The Selma Times-Journal. In a post to his 86 million followers Monday night, he thanked journalists for their efforts to surface the truth and keep their communities informed.

Zuckerbergs post comes on the heels of his nearly 6,000-word manifesto that offered an ambitious vision for Facebooks global role. Its an important declaration of principles that can help restore trust in news and information delivered on digital platforms. The statement implies a responsibility to share benefits with producers of content, acknowledges the importance of accurate information and seeks to engage communities in civil discourse. This welcome change of direction couldnt come at a more critical time.

As Zuckerberg knows, democracy requires an informed electorate, able to separate fact from fiction. But thats never been more difficult.

TV, the web and social media have combined to give citizens information to support any position and confirm any bias, facts be damned. But information is not journalism, and data begs to be organized and interpreted. The common foundation of everyday facts, the starting place from which we discuss differences, is eroding. By chasing clicks and taking the presidential bait, journalists have and will continue to lose ground. And so will democracy.

We need to deal with both short-term attacks on journalism and the longer-term consequences for our democracy.

The short-term answer is plain to see, but hard to achieve: Do the job.

Journalism 101 requires the full, accurate, contextual search for truth, regardless of how its packaged or on what platform its presented. That hasnt changed.

But much else has. Recent attacks on journalism couldnt have caught it in a weaker state. The transition to digital has decimated many newsrooms and given rise to new kinds of information companies with, until now, a different set of values.

Google, Facebook and others have supplanted the power of newsrooms by repackaging their journalismalong the way mixing it with other web content branded as news but not subject to the same ethical standards and traditionsand giving voice and access to hundreds of millions of users.

Technological disruption of the news industry is not a new phenomenon, of course. In the middle of the last century, Jack Knight built a successful newspaper empire against a backdrop of familiar forces: technological change, a shifting social order at home and unrest abroad. He knew that troubled times demanded a publishers steady, principled hand.

While a majority of Americans are spending more time consuming news on social media platforms, the leaders of these companies have, until recently, declined to accept their role as the most important publishers of our time. They have shown scant interest in judging wheat from chaff while chasing market share.

The good news is thats changing, and Zuckerberg is leading the way. He and others in Silicon Valley would be well served by turning to Jack Knights core values for guidance. In our digital age, it may seem counterintuitive to look to a man who had ink in his veins for advice. But the basic principles about the role of information and the media in our democracy that Knight embraced remain critically important.

First: Get the business model right. Knight believed in profitability and its achievement through a quality product and innovation. Facebooks statement last week suggests a way forward for platforms and publishers. Profit and purpose should be mutually reinforcing, not antithetical.

Second:The product has to be demonstrably true to be believed. Knight wrote, simply, get the truth and print it. There is objective truth, and it matters, even if it wont sit well with everyone. But a popular information platform that lacks standards will lack credibility and if you lack credibility, youll lose business. Facebook, as I read Zuckerbergs manifesto, understands this.

Third: Use technology to engage the reader. Knight was an early adopter. It was the telephone, after all, that allowed him to reach beyond his hometown of Akron and become an editor of multiple newspapers at once. He later embraced the fax and early internet, always searching for new ways to engage readers and get the news out.

The reluctant publishers of Silicon Valley know that technological innovation can drive progress. Its not enough to use technology to amass clicks and shares; use it also to get accurate information to people as conveniently and seamlessly as possible. Technology has shrunk our world in remarkable ways, but if speed and connectivity displace substance and meaning, we lose civic value.

To preserve civic value, and restore faith in the free press, todays new publishers should heed yesterdays values. It would be good for businessand for democracy.

Alberto Ibargen is president and CEO of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

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Can Zuckerberg Save Journalism Or Democracy? - Huffington Post