Public Journalism and Public Knowledge

Abstract

Public journalism is challenging the more traditional notions of mainstream journalism. It represents an attempt to connect journalists with the communities within which they operate. It places citizen input at the center of journalistic concerns. In this essay, we examine the origin and development of public journalism. We note a few of the similarities in this movement to the early muckrakers operating at the turn of the century. We then consider the state of public political knowledge and how this affects public journalism efforts. Finally, we argue for educational reforms to aid public journalism in connecting to a more deliberative public.

From Contest to Content: The Impact of Public Journalism on New Zealand Election Campaign Coverage

“…For public journalism to be mainstreamed, it will need a higher profile in journalism training so that newer generations of reporters are exposed to it and develop public journalism skills. Eksterowicz et al (1998) state that journalism and communication programs continue to put forward journalistic impartiality and neutrality as the ideal model, and they argue for a new, cross-disciplinary cooperation in public journalism education at the tertiary level. Clearly, new models of training and education that encompass public journalism will address the tension between so-called journalistic objectivity and the journalist as an activist in political dialogue with public audiences.…”

What's "Public" About Public Journalism? Public Journalism and the Lack of a Coherent Public Philosophy

“…Public journalism scholars frequently invoke the decline in voter participation during political elections in particular, as well as the decline in civic participation in local community affairs more generally, as evidence of widespread public alienation from the democratic process (e.g., Charity, 1995; Merritt, 1998;Rosen, 1996). These scholars also invoke the news media's much-criticized coverage of the 1988 U.S. presidential elections, and results from a study by the Times-Mirror Center (1994), which found that the majority of respondents agreed that "the news media gets [sic] in the way of society solving its problems" (p. 178), as evidence of widespread public dissatisfaction with how mass-mediated political discourse is presently conducted (e.g., Coleman, 1997;Eksterowicz, Roberts, & Clark, 1998;Glasser & Craft, 1998;Lambeth, 1998a;Merritt, 1998;Rosen, 1992Rosen, , 1995Rosen, , 1996Schudson, 1998;Willey, 1998).…”

“…Although no one has so far addressed this issue in detail, the literature on public journalism suggests that journalists should engage citizens in their capacity as members of specific communities-a term I use to connote fields of local, multiple interests that may, alternately, both inclusively affiliate and exclusively conflict with each other. The literature on public journalism abounds with references to ideals such as community attachment, community connectedness, and the like, which imply that journalistic coverage of politics should be grounded in particular community values (e.g., Charity, 1995; Eksterowich, Roberts, & Clark, 1998;Fouhy, 1994;Merritt, 1998;Rosen, 1993Rosen, , 1994Rosen, , 1996. Yet, how public journalism scholars conceive of a community remains unclear.…”

The Impacts of Hyperlinks and Writer Information on the Credibility of Stories on a Participatory Journalism Web Site

“…The civic, or public journalism movement, allows the concerns of citizens to help shape the news agenda [3,4,5]. The presidential election in 1988 is often cited as the time civic journalism emerged.…”

“…During this time journalists raised concerns that the election news being covered wasn't news that was of interest to citizens, and that journalists hadn't remembered the public in their coverage [5]. The rise of civic journalism was spurred by declining newspaper readership and increased competition in the delivery of news, particularly 24 hour news stations like CNN [3].…”