Public/Civic Journalism

A new movement finding its way into newsrooms-about 200 around the country-affects how journalists define and gather news. Proponents call it public or civic journalism. Professor Jay Rosen, a leading supporter of public journalism, says it is an argument about the proper task of the press and a set of approaches to newsgathering and reporting that are slowly spreading through American journalism.

The argument about the task of the press says: If public life is in trouble in the United States, then journalism is in trouble. Therefore, journalists should do what they can to support public life. The press should help citizens participate in public life and take them seriously when they do, rather than treat citizens as spectators to a drama performed by professionals and I technicians. And the press should nourish or create the sort of public talk some might call a deliberative dialogue. Most important, perhaps, journalists must learn to see hope as an essential resource that they cannot deplete indefinitely without costs to the community.

Supporter’s base public journalism on a fundamental concept of democracy espoused by James Madison-that by participating in the governing of them, people preserve democracy. To have the kind of democracy envisioned by Madison, the press must be a participant be-cause a democracy needs an informed citizenry.

Americans have grown tired of the press because they believe the news is boring and biased. A survey asked respondents about their level of confidence in what they see and read in the news. Over a five-year period, the percentage of people who said they had a great deal of confidence in television news dropped from 55 to 35 percent, in newsmagazines from 38 to I2 percent, and in newspapers from 50 to 20 percent. Recently, at least among newspaper readers, the confidence rating edged up to 24 percent.

To combat the growing public disenchantment with the press and public life, public journalism offers a set of approaches for reporters to adopt. In political coverage, news organizations should turn away from the horse-race aspect of coverage-who’s ahead, who’s behind. Instead, journalists should conduct extensive interviews, polls and public forums with voters to find out what issues concern them. This process allows the public to decide what is important.

Proponents of public journalism say journalists cannot live in a vacuum as neutral 0 servers. Reporters should listen to all voices, not just the loudest; and listen particularly to those people in the middle. Proponents of public journalism suggest that the routine five W’s and H questions (who, what, where, when, why and how) work well but may not be the only ones that work. In public journalism, reporters should ask:

Who—cares, is affected, needs to be included, has a stake, and is missing from this discussion?
What-are the consequences, does it mean to citizens, would this accomplish, values are at work?
When-were things different, can things be different, should talk lead to action?
Where-are we headed, is the common ground, should debate take place, is the best entry point for citizens?
Why-is this happening, do we need discussion, are things not happening, should we care?
How—does it affect civic life, did the community do, does my story encourage action or help the public decide?

Reporters and editors at The Wichita (Kan.) Eagle created a foundation for tapping into a community’s civic life that requires reporters to dig deeper into their communities. First, reporters need to explore the layers of civic life in their communities beyond the elected officials with whom they normally deal. They also must be aware of the different neighborhoods of their communities because people in different neighbor- hoods may have different experiences and opinions regarding issues. Finally, reporters need to identify the community leaders who can be engaged as sources on stories. Community leaders are not limited to elected officials; private citizens also can be knowledgeable sources regarding issues facing a community.

The Knight-Ridder chain, which owns the Eagle, surveyed more than 16,300 readers and nonreaders in the 26 communities where it publishes newspapers. The survey found that people with a real sense of connection to their communities are almost twice as likely to be regular readers of newspapers. While the result was not surprising, it was a message about what papers need to do. “Newspapers that immerse themselves in the lives of their communities, large or small, have the best prospects for success in the years ahead,” James K. Batten, the late president of Knight-Ridder, once said. “And they have the best chance of drawing people in from the apathetic periphery to the vibrant center of community life. That will be good for the communities, and good for the newspapers.”

Hard News and Soft News: Hard news” refers to coverage of breaking events involving top leaders, major issues, or significant disruptions in the routines of daily life, such as an earthquake or airline disaster. Hard news has traditionally been considered essential for an informed and participatory citizenry. “Soft news,” on the other hand, is news unrelated to public affairs or policy, and is typically more sensational, more personality or celebrity oriented, less time- bound (meaning that the traditional journalistic norm of “timeliness” does not apply), and more incident-based than hard news (Patterson 2001a).

The hard news concentrates on stories of national and international significance. Politics, government, foreign affairs, are the categories of news treated daily. In a good many cities, network viewers are exposed to more hard news from outside world capitals than they can get from their newspapers. Another kind of hard news- the tabloid story of highway crash, violent crime, and gore- is nearly non-existent unless the story is on a scale which cannot be ignored.

The background, non-deadline piece, sometimes running to three or four minutes, provides viewers with background on a political or social issue, a scientific discovery, an educational or cultural subject This story form, running two or three times the length of the average deadline story, could never find room on the five, or rarely on the fifteen-minute versions of television news. As the volume of hard news on a particular day permits, the short feature or even shorter humorous story gets an airing as a change of pace and mood from the usually heavy nature of the news of the day.

One of the big community contributions of television is covering the news of civic affairs- city, country and state. These visually static stories are getting air-time and -are being dealt with by more knowledgeable television newsmen then were the case only a few years ago. The television news programme is no better than its direct link with the viewer; this link constitutes a direct on-the-air communication. Whether or not it is good for the air person to become a star, for a show-business aspect to be injected into electronic news, for a personality to become a part of the news that is delivered- these are nevertheless the realities. As the big network news names are famous across the land, their counterparts on local stations are celebrated in their communities.

This star system, created by the public is not likely to change either at the national or the local level. What is changing and will continue to change is the caliber and capability of the star. Up to now, too many electronic communications with a knack for holding an audience have been “readers” — personalities with no news credentials.

The world has already launched into an era of technological capacity which was only in the testing laboratory just a few years ago. Studio film and videotape colour are already in use and spreading rapidly. Network-station and inter-station closed circuit systems are used for instant airing or recording of live film, and tape material throughout most of the countries. Still pictures and copy go the same route by facsimile transmission. Quicker editing, and incredible things like stopping the action of a story at will, are making videotape- one of the greatest of all inventions for television- into an even more versatile tool.

Historically, a distinction between hard news and soft news was maintained through a number of institutional structures and processes including:

The division of media organizations into separate news and entertainment divisions • An assumption that public affairs programming would be free from expectations of profitability • Trade distinctions between news and entertainment media
Print layout and programming cues that distinguished for readers or viewers hard news from soft news
A reutilization of program schedules that placed a time orientation to hard news, with local news in the early evening followed immediately by national news, and then local news again at 10 or 11pm
A limited number of television stations through the 1980s that broadcast news at the same time
The professionalization of journalists
Formal standard operating procedures for determining newsworthiness (Delli Carpini and Williams 2001).

Structural changes in the telecommunications industry and in technology over the past 20 years have erased what was once a “walling off” between hard news and soft news. Due in part to the ubiquitous adoption of the remote control, the widespread availability of cable and satellite television, the popularity of the Internet and World Wide Web, and the horizontal and vertical integration of the media industry, the public can now find news anywhere, anytime — or virtually ignore the news altogether, choosing alternative programming.

A new movement finding its way into newsrooms-about 200 around the country-affects how journalists define and gather news. Proponents call it public or civic journalism. Professor Jay Rosen, a leading supporter of public journalism, says it is an argument about the proper task of the press and a set of approaches to newsgathering and reporting that are slowly spreading through American journalism.

The argument about the task of the press says: If public life is in trouble in the United States, then journalism is in trouble. Therefore, journalists should do what they can to support public life. The press should help citizens participate in public life and take them seriously when they do, rather than treat citizens as spectators to a drama performed by professionals and I technicians. And the press should nourish or create the sort of public talk some might call a deliberative dialogue. Most important, perhaps, journalists must learn to see hope as an essential resource that they cannot deplete indefinitely without costs to the community.

Supporter’s base public journalism on a fundamental concept of democracy espoused by James Madison-that by participating in the governing of them, people preserve democracy. To have the kind of democracy envisioned by Madison, the press must be a participant be-cause a democracy needs an informed citizenry.

Americans have grown tired of the press because they believe the news is boring and biased. A survey asked respondents about their level of confidence in what they see and read in the news. Over a five-year period, the percentage of people who said they had a great deal of confidence in television news dropped from 55 to 35 percent, in newsmagazines from 38 to I2 percent, and in newspapers from 50 to 20 percent. Recently, at least among newspaper readers, the confidence rating edged up to 24 percent.

To combat the growing public disenchantment with the press and public life, public journalism offers a set of approaches for reporters to adopt. In political coverage, news organizations should turn away from the horse-race aspect of coverage-who’s ahead, who’s behind. Instead, journalists should conduct extensive interviews, polls and public forums with voters to find out what issues concern them. This process allows the public to decide what is important.

Proponents of public journalism say journalists cannot live in a vacuum as neutral 0 servers. Reporters should listen to all voices, not just the loudest; and listen particularly to those people in the middle. Proponents of public journalism suggest that the routine five W’s and H questions (who, what, where, when, why and how) work well but may not be the only ones that work. In public journalism, reporters should ask:

Who—cares, is affected, needs to be included, has a stake, and is missing from this discussion?
What-are the consequences, does it mean to citizens, would this accomplish, values are at work?
When-were things different, can things be different, should talk lead to action?
Where-are we headed, is the common ground, should debate take place, is the best entry point for citizens?
Why-is this happening, do we need discussion, are things not happening, should we care?
How—does it affect civic life, did the community do, does my story encourage action or help the public decide?