Civic journalism


Civic journalism is the idea of integrating journalism into the democratic process. The media not only informs the public, but it also works towards engaging citizens and creating public debate. The civic journalism movement is an attempt to abandon the notion that journalists and their audiences are spectators in political and social processes. In its place, the civic journalism movement seeks to treat readers and community members as participants.

Overview

With a small but committed following, civic journalism has become as much of a philosophy as it is a practice. Civic journalism has began to develop a strong following again after first emerging as a philosophy in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Those who find civic journalism to be a new, progressive, and profound method for the media to engage with the public see it as an opportunity to revitalize democracy as we know it. As technological advances overtake the modern world, it is becoming less common for the general public to buy newspapers or watch TV news to inform themselves on the events in the political sphere. Including this, younger generations, such as Generation X, Generation Y, and even Millennials, are not coming out to the polls due to a variety of reasons. Overall, democracy is beginning to fail as there is a lack of civic engagement and even interference with democratic processes, such as Russia's involvement with the 2016 United States election, and even electronic voting machines that are being hacked and altering results. All in all, proponents of civic journalism believe that for democracy to regain its traction and glory in the modern world, the media must be more receptive to feedback from the public and take initiative to engage the public as well.
According to Oxford Research Encyclopedias, the popularity of political journalism is rising, and the area is becoming one of the more dominant domains of journalism. Political journalism is meant to be more of an overseer of democratic process as they relate to civic engagement rather than a scapegoat for the issues with democracy. Including this, there are four key concepts that political journalism can be boiled down to. These concepts are the framing of politics as a strategic game, interpretive versus straight news, conflict framing and media negativity, and finally, political or partisan bias. In essence, these can be viewed as the four quintessential pillars of civic journalism.

History

In the 1920s, before the notion of public journalism was developed, there was the famous debate between Walter Lippmann and John Dewey over the role of journalism in a democracy. Lippmann viewed the role of the journalist to be simply recording what policy makers say and then providing that information to the public. In opposition to this, Dewey defined the journalist's role as being more engaged with the public and critically examining information given by the government. He thought journalists should weigh the consequences of the policies being enacted. Dewey believed conversation, debate, and dialogue were what democracy was all about and that journalism has an important piece of that conversation.
Decades later Dewey's argument was further explored by Jay Rosen and Davis Merritt, who were looking at the importance of the media in the democratic process. In 1993, Rosen and Merritt formed the concept of public journalism. In their joint "manifesto" on public journalism that was published in 1994, Rosen explains that "public journalism tries to place the journalist within the political community as a responsible member with a full stake in public life. But it does not deny the important difference between journalists and other actors including political leaders, interest groups and citizens themselves...In a word, public journalists want public life to work. In order to make it work they are willing to declare an end to their neutrality on certain questions – for example: whether a community comes to grips with its problems, whether political earns the attention it claims."
According to communication scholar Seong Jae Min, it was actually in the 1990s when this conversation style of journalism, "gained significant traction in both academia and the professional world of journalism". He reports that the rise of this idea combined with ongoing dissent over traditional journalistic practice lead to the movement of public journalism. "This new journalistic movement was born to defeat the plagues of modern democracy in which citizens are alienated from the civic life and reduced to passive voters". He later admits that this movement was superficially prescriptive, and that due to several reasons it was eclipsed by the movement for citizen journalism.

Definition

According to the now dormant Pew Center for Civic Journalism, the practice "is both a philosophy and a set of values supported by some evolving techniques to reflect both of those in journalism. At its heart is a belief that journalism has an obligation to public life – an obligation that goes beyond just telling the news or unloading lots of facts. The way we do our journalism affects the way public life goes." Leading organizations in the field include the now dormant Pew Center, the Kettering Foundation, the Participatory Journalism Interest Group in the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication and the Public Journalism Network.
Although they developed the concept of public journalism together, both Rosen and Merritt have differing viewpoints on what exactly public journalism is.
Rosen defines public journalism as a way of thinking about the business of the craft that calls on journalists to address people as citizens, potential participants in public affairs, rather than victims or spectators; help the political community act upon, rather than just learn about, its problems; improve the climate of public discussion, rather than simply watch it deteriorate; and help make public life go well, so that it earns its claim on our attention and speak honestly about its civic values, its preferred view of politics, its role as a public actor.
Rosen explains five ways to understand public journalism:
Merritt, on the other hand, explains that it is the responsibility of the journalist to act as a fair-minded participant in the public arena. His famous analogy of the journalist having the same role as a sports referee best depicts this idea:
The function of a third party – a referee or umpire or judge – in sports competition is to facilitate the deciding of the outcome. Ideally, the official impinges on the game; if things go according to the rules, he or she is neither seen nor heard. Yet the presence of a fair-minded participant is necessary in order for an equitable decision to be reached. What he or she brings to the arena is knowledge of the agreed-upon rules, the willingness to contribute that knowledge, and authority – that is, the right to be attended to. The referee's role is to make sure that the process works as the contestants agreed it should. In order to maintain that authority, that right to be heard, the referee must exhibit no interest in the final score other than it is arrived at under the rules. But, both for referees and contestants, that is the ultimate interest. It is important to remember that the referee doesn't make the rules. Those are agreed on by the contestants – in this case, the democratic public. The referee, rather, is the fair-minded caretaker. What journalist should bring to the arena of public life is knowledge of the rules – how the public has decided a democracy should work and the ability and the willingness to provide relevant information and a lace for that information to be discussed and turned into democratic consent. Like the referee, to maintain our authority – the right to be heard – we must exhibit no partisan interest in the specific outcome other than it is arrived at under the democratic process.

In a National Public Radio interview Merritt summed up civic journalism as "a set of values about the craft that recognizes and acts upon the interdependence between journalism and democracy. It values the concerns of citizens over the needs of the media and political actors, and conceives of citizens as stakeholders in the democratic process rather than as merely victims, spectators or inevitable adversaries. As inherent participants in the process, we should do our work in ways that aid in the resolution of public problems by fostering broad citizen engagement."

Goals

The goal of civic journalism, or public journalism, is to allow the community to remain engaged with journalists and news outlets, restore democratic values, and rebuild the public's trust in journalists. The ubiquity of "fake news" and biased reporting in the modern media landscape has led to an overall decrease in the trust that people put in journalists and media sources. Proponents of civic journalism believe that this philosophy will allow individuals to have a greater say in decision-making and in the broader political sphere.
Given the rise in yellow journalism and search engine optimization algorithms that create an echo-chamber among mass-media, civic journalism is entering a niche role where it can shift the position of news within public reception. Recently, news publishers undergo more and more observation as their ethics and content come under extensive scrutiny for political biases. Civic journalism pivots the role of publishers from distributing information to curating information. Given one of civic journalism's central tenets - making the press a forum for discussion of community issues - a publisher is able to seek out a niche in bolstering local engagement over spreading knowledge of international issues readily available on the Internet.

Related concepts

is variety of journalism that is conducted by people who are not simply professional journalists, but who convey information by using social media and various blog posts. Recently, citizen journalism has expanded its worldwide influence despite continuing concerns over whether citizen journalists are as reliable as true, well-practiced journalists. The goal of citizen journalists is to increase civic engagement, similar to how the goal civic journalism is to increases civic engagement. Citizen journalists may be influencers as opposed to accredited journalists, but still have a substantial means of conveying their message to the general public.

Political journalism

As previously mentioned, a similar concept to civic journalism is political journalism. Political journalism has four key pillars, which are the framing of politics as a strategic game, conflict framing and media negativity, interpretive versus straight news, and political or partisan bias. These four pillars are integral to the ideology as a whole. Political journalism relates to civic journalism in that it is a movement towards democratizing the media to partake in the voting process.
Political journalism's first pillar, the framing of politics as a strategic game, is meant to signify how politics should not simply be seen as a simple election process for democracies. In order to win, one must play the game well. Civic journalism and political journalism are meant to be tools for successful democratic elections in viewing politics as a strategic game. This is mainly due to the fact that they both encourage constituents to voice their opinions so that politicians are more representative of the true whole. The second pillar is conflict framing and media negativity, due to the fact that information portrayed in the media can often be skewed or false. Political journalism offers an avenue to resolve this issue and eliminates potential conflicts of interest. The third pillar is interpretative versus straight news. Often, the way that information is portrayed is not entirely neutral, and has some bias. Media sources may leave the implications or ramifications of a certain news event up to interpretation by the viewer. An idea that relates to this is interpretive journalism, or interpretive reporting, which requires a journalist to go beyond the basic facts related to a news event and provide a deeper analysis or coverage of an event. Finally, the last pillar is political or partisan bias, which in a sense relates to the rest of these pillars as well. Political or partisan bias refers to the non-neutrality of news coverage or general political occurrences. Often, when politicians speak they are heavily biased, and it is up to the individual to determine whether to believe what they are hearing. Political and civic journalism provide an avenue for the media and the general public to integrate into the democratic process to promote transparency.

Main tenets

According to The Roots of Civic Journalism by David K. Perry, the practitioners of civic journalism – who saw the movement's most drastic growth in the early 1990s – have always adhered to the basic tenets of public journalism:
Usually formulated by a few devoted members in a newsroom, civic journalism projects are typically associated with the opinion section of papers. These projects are usually found in the form of organized town meetings and adult education programs. The Public Journalism Network explains that "journalism and democracy work best when news, information and ideas flow freely; when news portrays the full range and variety of life and culture of all communities; when public deliberation is encouraged and amplified; and when news helps people function as political actors and not just as political consumers."

Key proponents and opponents

Civic journalism is a polarizing philosophy, according to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln College of Journalism and Mass Communications.
Proponents believe integrating journalism into the democratic process helps inform voters and makes them more aware of what is occurring in the political sphere. It may make a difference in the democratic process if all voters are well informed. Civic journalism itself is the process of integrating journalism into the democratic process and allowing voters and the media to play a more active role rather than being witnesses and bystanders of political events.
Opponents find civic journalism to be risky and ineffective and believe it brings about conflicts of interest and necessitates involvement in unethical public affairs.
Notable proponents of civic journalism include:
The Citizen Voices Project was one newspaper's attempt to facilitate civic conversation within the diverse city of Philadelphia. Citizen Voices came into effect in 1999, during a very close mayoral election between a black democrat and a white republican. Citizen Voices was modeled on the National Issues Forum and was intended to amplify minority voices not frequently acknowledged in the political realm. Forums were held throughout the city, facilitating deliberation of the most important issues facing citizens: jobs, neighborhoods, public safety, and reforming city hall. Essays written by Citizen Voices participants were published in the commentary pages of The Philadelphia Inquirer, while the editorial board framed its coverage of the campaign around the five designated issues. While the Citizen Voices Project did not increase voter turnout, it has given journalists a new perspective on how to cover urban political issues.