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Topics: Civic Communication

Journalism plays a special role in the public and governmental life of the United States. It is protected in the Constitution because of this central relation to civic culture, and because civic culture is central to public life.

Civic journalism proposes a new compact between the people and the press. It begins with the understanding that journalists have a fundamental responsibility for strengthening civic culture. Standing apart, as seemingly neutral observers while public life collapses is no longer possible, even if journalists wish that it were.

The culture of journalism is well schooled in making separations: journalists vs. those they cover; news vs. editorial; facts vs. values; print vs. the electronic media.

Civic journalism is about making connections between journalists and the communities they cover, and between journalism and citizenship. It is first of all a set of practices in which journalists attempted to reconnect with citizens, improve public discussion, and strengthen civic culture.

Second, it is an ongoing conversation about the ultimate aims of journalism. Public journalists are people who believe that the press should take a far more assertive role in trying to make democracy work than they have in the past.

Finally, it is a growing movement of working journalists-print and broadcast-some academics, philosophers, and a number of institutions who see civic journalism as central to the reconstruction of public life.

Background

The public or civic journalism movement began with the 1988 elections. Just as many citizens around the U.S. were disgusted by a campaign that focused on Willie Horton, Boston Harbor, and the Pledge of Allegiance, so were many journalists. In separate institutions-city rooms and news rooms, journalism think tanks and foundations-working journalists and scholars began looking for a better way to cover politics that would put citizens first, above politicians and journalists alike.

In 1990 and 1992, several experiments began to cut a new path. In Kansas, the Wichita Eagle began its "Your Vote Counts" project during the 1990 elections. The paper polled Kansans to determine the issues they most cared about, and then, bringing their own knowledge to bear, editors identified 12 statewide issues that election coverage would concentrate on. The Eagle produced an issues watch for six consecutive Sundays leading up to the election. Supported by its owner, Knight-Ridder, and in partnership with ABC affiliate KAKE-TV the Eagle promoted voter registration and turnout.

The experiment carried over to a second Knight-Ridder paper, the Charlotte Observer. With the aid of the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, the Observer teamed with the ABC affiliate, WSOC-TV, to abandon "horse race" coverage in the 1992 elections. A "citizen's agenda" was formed, out of an initial poll and extensive community-wide interviews. This research became the organizing principle for reader-driven coverage. A "citizen's panel" comprised of five hundred poll respondents served to keep the Observer focused on the citizen's agenda. Citizen response was strong and clear, with more than 2,400 readers calling the paper.

Public journalism does not mean poll- driven coverage, or turning over the newspages to readers. It simply means starting where citizens start and going on from there to produce news coverage that is central to their concerns. It also means improving the nature of public dialogue.

In Madison, Wisconsin, a civic journalism project was launched. "We the People" began as a joint effort of Wisconsin Public Television and the Wisconsin State Journal. The two teamed up with public television station KTCA of Minneapolis for a joint multi-site town hall forum with Democratic presidential primary candidates Bill Clinton and Jerry Brown. From there the project rapidly developed into a full-fledged effort to bring citizens into the process of political coverage. The project rapidly expanded to non-electoral issues: a citizen's state property tax panel; a mock national budget session tackling the deficit; and citizen grand juries on gambling and health care reform. The forums are broadcast live by public television stations in the Wisconsin state system, and covered by the State Journal and two other papers. Citizens wanting to participate send in coupons. Panels are then selected from this pool to form an accurate demographic profile.

Early on, We the People incorporated citizen deliberation into the town hall process. Citizen panels met with facilitators and discussed issues prior to broadcast. The citizens became the experts by cross examining their representatives based on their own agenda.

The Public Nature of Journalism

This activity-the strengthening of civic culture by working to reconnect people to their communities, draw them into politics and civic affairs, and reclaiming the system as public property-is at the heart of civic journalism. This requires redefining the relationship of journalism to political coverage.

The American people are as cynical about the institutions of journalism as they are about their politics. They see "horse-race" coverage as an insider's game, played by politicians and journalists with each other, to the exclusion of the public.

It is hardly an overstatement to say that the institutions of the press-because of their ubiquity and influence-have become our new political bosses.

- Ellen Hume, 1991

Political coverage is the arena in which civic journalism was born. Despite growing diversity in the range of issues covered by civic journalists, most still return to the reinvention of political coverage as a starting point for reconnecting citizens and politics.

One of the most ambitious efforts to push citizen election coverage forward is the National Public Radio "Election Project." More than 90 NPR affiliates teamed up to change the way they covered the 1994 elections. In Boston, Seattle, Dallas, Wichita and San Francisco, NPR staff worked with local newspapers on issues reporting, polling, deliberative forums, citizens panels, and joint computer bulletin boards. Beyond the city and state goals, the project sought to strengthen ties between NPR member stations and NPR affiliates.

In Boston, the NBC affiliate WBZ-TV joined the Boston Globe and WBUR-FM to focus on crime. The Wichita Eagle and KMUW-FM concentrated on leadership and government trust. In Dallas, the Morning News and KERA-FM were joined by public television station KERA to cover political ethics, as well as citizen concerns about crime. In Seattle, KUOW-FM directed coverage toward media ethics and responsibility, while the Seattle Times cosponsored community forums. In San Francisco, the Chronicle teamed with KQED-FM and NBC affiliate KRON-TV to run a tri-weekly series on issues stories. The Poynter Institute, Kettering Foundation, and Pew Charitable Trusts collaborated on the project, continuing the work begun in Charlotte.

In Florida, six newspapers teamed up with twelve NPR affiliates to create the Voices of Florida project, for joint coverage of statewide citizen concerns. The six newspapers have a combined circulation of 1.38-million. The St.Petersburg Times and Miami Herald took the lead on the project, eventually bringing in television affiliates in each city (including an independent Spanish-language station in Miami).

In Hawaii, KHET Public Television took the lead in a project modeled after Charlotte, along with KHPR-FM, the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, and KITV, an ABC affiliate with a strong community service tradition. The group formed a citizen's panel (including outreach to ethnic Japanese and Filipino voters) that resulted in five statewide town hall meetings. Voter registration increased by 3.2 percent over the 1992 election to reach its highest point in a decade. The group is planning an "100 Days" town hall with the new governor, Hawaii's first of Filipino ancestry.

Journalists as Citizens

Improving coverage of politics is an important first step toward reestablishing the bonds of trust between journalistic institutions and public life. The affairs of the political community are not assumed to be someone else's business, but the common interests of journalists and citizens. We believe that restoring the civic culture requires that journalists declare they want public life to work. This means declaring an end to neutrality on certain issues: whether people participate in public life; whether a genuine debate takes place when needed; whether a community comes to grips with its problems; whether politics earns the attention it claims.

This does not mean that journalists take sides in political debates or community issues. The point is not that journalists should declare themselves on partisan issues or specific candidates. It does mean that they actively encourage public discussion, providing the public space where shared information is translated into action.

[T]he public journalist's newspaper is doing what the conscientious citizen would do given the time and resources to do it: establishing the facts; assaying the problem; sharing thoughts and ideas with other conscientious citizens; resolving underlying issues, such as core values; learning more from successes than from failures; aggressively fostering a necessarily noisy but civil discussion leading to democratic consensus.

- Buzz Merritt, Editor Wichita Eagle, 1994

Crossing Lines: Living in one Community

One important function of public journalism is the ability to cross traditional media lines, to see communities as whole entities, and to utilize many different media to address community needs.

For example, the Pew Charitable Trusts have funded the "Renewing Our Democratic Heart" program which encourages the teaming of newspapers with local broadcast partners. One such grant has worked successfully in Tallahassee, where the Democrat has teamed up with the local CBS affiliate WCTV, and two state universities, Florida State and Florida A&M for "The Public Agenda," a major coverage and research project. The partners are jointly sponsoring community issues forums and ongoing neighborhood discussion groups over a two year period. The Democrat 's editor Lou Heldman writes that Public Agenda is "really about changing the way people think and act. If those now calling themselves 'residents' or 'taxpayers' begin thinking of themselves as 'citizens,' and acting in intelligent and empowered ways, it follows that public officials will begin to think differently about citizens and their own responsibilities."

Beyond cooperation across traditional lines, civic journalism projects are also searching out new techniques for getting stories from the grassroots. The Wichita Eagle "People Project" was launched to engage citizens in a search for solutions to problems that government seemed unable to solve: schools that failed to teach, the growth of gangs, political gridlock and family stress. The paper reported on each issue in depth. But editors felt expanded coverage required addressing the competing core values at the root of many problems, but that were seldom addressed in the media. Teaming with partners KSNW-TV and KNSS radio, the Eagle made space and time available for "an informed discussion of critical issues" which would produce solutions that the media partners, in turn, were committed to implementing. "Opinion mapping" was one technique used, in which the people and places in the community from which ideas for solutions flow are charted systematically. As soon as patterns emerge, reporters can begin to cover issues of community concern, rather than waiting until problems explode into crises.

A similar approach is the daily philosophy of the public life team of the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, a group of reporters charged with putting public journalism principles into practice in their routine coverage of politics and public affairs. Among their techniques is scheduling regular "community conversations" with citizens to find out how average people approach topics of public concern. The Pilot is attempting to bring the citizen perspective into daily coverage with the same ubiquity that citizens and experts now share.

The Practice of Civic Journalism

Beyond crossing traditional media boundaries and attempting to focus on whole communities, civic journalism projects are tackling some of the tough core issues at the heart of the agenda for building a new citizenship: race, neighborhood life, children and youth.

In Akron, Ohio, the Beacon Journal 's five-part project "A Question of Race" won the 1994 Pulitzer Prize for public service. The paper convened focus groups of blacks and whites which were observed by reporters. Discussion centered on quantitative data showing continuing disparities between the races. During the series the paper invited community organizations to volunteer to establish projects addressing race relations, and hired facilitators to aid in project planning. With the last part of the series, the paper invited readers to send in a coupon pledging to fight racism: more than 22 thousand area residents responded, ten thousand of whom were actively engaged in race relations projects by the summer of 1994.

The New Orleans Times-Picayune spent six months to develop "Together Apart: The Myth of Race". One hundred sixty-six pages of broadsheet print chronicled race relations in New Orleans from slavery to the present day. More than 6,500 people called a voice-mail box to comment on the series, which involved a biracial team of 20 newsroom staff working through their own views on race. The series focused on personal experience, historical context, and the divergent cultures of blacks and whites in New Orleans. The goals of the project were to encourage "honest dialogue as a remedy to fear, mistrust and rage" according to the paper's editor and publisher, and to encourage discussion oriented toward action, rather than passive blaming. Editor Keith Woods said, "we're essentially talking about redefining the role of the news-paper...not just in doing big projects, but in admitting that, especially in urban America, (newspapers) have power, and because of the power, responsibility."

These were not isolated projects. The Indianapolis Star published "Blacks and Whites: Can We Get Along?" on the heels of the Mike Tyson trial in 1992. Teaming with the local ABC affiliate, the stories reflected citizen experience rather than expert opinion which was a major departure for the paper.

In Madison, the Wisconsin State Journal launched a major effort, "City of Hope," to address the migration of low-income, predominantly black, residents from Chicago and Milwaukee into the largely white state capital. Teams of reporters looked at crime and violence, employment, and deteriorating neighborhoods and education. Before each section was published, editor Frank Denton chaired an open community meaning, asking leaders for action in response to the paper's findings. Wisconsin Public Television profiled one year in the life of an African American woman's move in a one-hour documentary, "My Promised Land: Bernice Cooper's Story" which was covered by the paper.

Neighborhood and Community

It is artificial to separate race from neighborhood and community. The Charlotte Observer has tackled these linked issues head on. In the "Taking Back Our Neighborhoods" project, the Observer targeted areas with a violent crime rate at least twice that of the city as whole. Aided by a Pew grant to help Knight-Ridder newspapers develop innovative coverage geared toward community solutions, the paper again teamed with broadcast partners. Every six weeks, the Observer focuses on one neighborhood. Coverage describes general conditions in the area; outlines community response, with attention to citizens who have fought back; and profiles other neighborhoods where "the tide is beginning to turn" to offer suggestions on ways residents can develop their own solutions.

Our goal is simple: we want to bring the community together to better understand Charlotte's crime problem. We want to foster a broader dialogue about what can be done, including citizens most affected by crime. And we want to rally the entire community to help these most troubled neighborhoods to help themselves.

- Jenny Buckner, Executive Editor, Charlotte Observer, 1994

In Fort Wayne, Indiana, the News-Sentinel has launched the "Neighborhood Project." Five editors meet quarterly with area residents and monthly with neighborhood association officials to discuss ways to involve other community agencies and organize informational meetings for public officials. Other than the meetings, the paper donates no money or work for area projects. Its goals are both to strengthen neighborhoods and the paper's understanding of how to cover them. The project has resulted in dramatic increases in citizen participation in the targeted neighborhoods, with turnout for some neighborhood meetings tripling. Lasting effects include greater connectedness between residents and officials. Because the paper does not do for citizens, but helps them to help themselves, residents themselves learn who to contact to solve problems, and how to follow through.

Youth

Neighborhood, race, and community are inextricably intertwined with the future of America's children. Youth projects are an important focus of the American Civic Forum, and they have been central to the growth of civic journalism as well.

In Dayton, the Daily News launched "Kids in Chaos: A Community Response" in partnership with WHIO-TV, the local Kettering Foundation, and Project Public Life and the Press. A series of community roundtables drew more than 300 groups into a community-wide discussion on juvenile crime. An ongoing series of major reporting projects, first-person stories, and editorials culminated in a series of family and local meetings, some of which were packaged on WHIO. In Fall 1994 the paper published a special section on juvenile crime including a background book prepared by the Kettering Foundation for its National Issues Forums. More than 2,000 residents participated in the project.

Detroit's murder rate has led the nation, with children and adolescents among the main victims. To address this crisis, WTVS, the public television station developed a multi-year, multi-dimensional, community outreach project, "City for Youth" in 1992. The goal is to improve the life experiences of Detroit youth and to connect citizens with the agencies and services that serve families. The station produced documentaries, town meetings, television forums and pulpit exchanges in a project that continues. Complementing this effort, the Detroit Free Press launched a "Children First" campaign in January 1993. A public forum with Attorney General Janet Reno drew 1,100 parents and professionals, while ongoing reportage including a weekly Sunday "Children First" feature emphasized community solutions.

Conclusion

Civic journalism is an ongoing experiment. Like many projects of new citizenship movements, it is rooted in the diverse practices of local communities. There is no one right way to do civic journalism.

There are, however, basic principles. The journalist's primary orientation should be toward citizens and their concerns, with the relationship to politicians and insiders seen as secondary-important, but only insofar as it illuminates what matters to citizens.

A public is something more than a market for information. Publics are formed when we turn to face common problems in argument, dialogue, discussion, and .

Fostering this view means that journalists must shift from seeing readers or viewers as audiences to seeing them as citizens; from seeing consumers to members of a community.

Information is relatively segmented pieces of data; knowledge is information made usable. Wisdom adds more: knowledge that has meaning added, structured, guided, and informed by an evolving value and conceptual framework

- Harry Boyte, Commonwealth, 1989

Changing some of American journalism's most fundamental assumptions will not be quick or easy. But the first steps have already begun in working newsrooms across the country.

Resources

Hume, E. (1991). Restoring the Bond: Connecting Campaign Coverage to Voters: Harvard University: Joan Shorenstein Barone Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy.

Miller, E. D. (1994). The Charlotte Project: Helping citizens take back democracy. (Vol. 4). St. Petersburg, Florida: The Poynter Institute for Media Studies.

Public Life and the Press: A Progress Report: Project on Public Life and the Press. Department of Journalism, New York University, 10 Washington Place, New York, NY 10003-6636 (updated quarterly).

Rosen, J. (1992). Politics, Vision, and the Press: Toward a Public Agenda for Journalism, The New News v. The Old News: The Press and Politics in the 1990s, (pp. 3-33). New York: Twentieth Century Fund Press.

Rosen, J. and Merritt, B. (1994). Public Journalism: Theory and Practice. Dayton: The Kettering Foundation.

Organizations

Pew Center for Civic Journalism. 601 13th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 2005. (202)331-2000.

Poynter Institute for Media Studies. 801 Third St. South, St. Petersburg, FL 33701. (813)821-9494.

Project on Public Life and the Press. Department of Journalism, New York University, 10 Washington Place, New York, NY 10003-6636. (212) 998-3793.

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