news production would be really important. final thing i would recommend is some sort of urgency index, by which i mean we have to know how far away from the disaster of a collapsed democracy are we? are we making progress towards that collapse? or are things getting marginally better? we need some way of locating where we are in political space as what s called democratic backsliding progresses. and here it might be smart for journalists to call on the wisdom and knowledge of political scientists who have studied the collapse of democracy and the erosion of democracy in different context so we can know how far along are we in the erosion of american democracy. i think that s an important element too. you put all of those things together and it s not exactly a set of instructions for reform, but it puts you on the right