by David Shaw
David Shaw writes about media for the Los Angeles Times.

Jay Rosen is an articulate and impassioned academic who has become both the chief proselytizer for and the official chronicler of a controversial reform movement that began a decade ago and has come to be known as "civic" or "public" journalism. Simply put, Rosen and his adherents argue that journalists and the daily newspapers for which they work have become increasingly estranged from the readers and communities they seek to serve. They say the best way to re-connect with and truly serve those readers and those communities is to replace (or at least greatly modify) the journalist's traditional role of detachment with one of engagement.

The proponents of civic journalism say that in a time of steadily declining newspaper readership and steadily increasing fragmentation, polarization, and cynicism in society at-large, journalists can no longer be content - and journalism can no longer be successful - if newspapers limit themselves to reporting and explaining issues and problems in their news pages and suggesting possible solutions on their editorial pages. To be genuinely effective - to both serve and survive - journalists must "help the political community act upon, rather than just learn about, its problems"; that means taking an active leadership role in sponsoring public forums to discuss these problems and aggressively seeking solutions to the problems within the public arena. It also means finding out what really matters to readers and insisting that political candidates talk about those issues - and that newspapers faithfully reflect the priorities that those issues represent.

In What Are Journalists For?, the most authoritative account to date of the movement he champions, Rosen occasionally lapses into a kind of New Age gobbledygook; the objective of journalism, he says, should be to "see the public into fuller existence" - a phrase he likes so much that he uses it twice within thirteen pages. But Rosen generally lays out his case in a clear and lucid fashion, and to his credit, he gives critics of the civic journalism movement ample space to state their case. Even more important, his diagnosis of what's wrong with journalism as it is often practiced in the post-Vietnam, post-Watergate era is largely on target (if by now overly familiar).

Yes, journalists - big-city newspaper reporters in particular - have become too cynical, too knee-jerk adversarial to those in power, too interested in the horse-race, name-calling, behind-the-scenes strategizing aspects of political campaigns at the expense of addressing (and insisting that candidates address) the issues that most concern and affect readers and voters. No doubt that helps explain why both voter turnout and newspaper readership are much lower in the 1990s than in the 1960s. And yes, some big-city journalists - especially those who appear on television - are now even more famous and highly paid than the people they cover (and have more in common with them than with their readers and viewers); not surprisingly, this paradigmatic shift in social status has rendered these journalists ever more disconnected from (and appallingly oblivious to) the burdens of everyday life for the vast majority of the American public.

Given this gap, it is certainly more worthwhile than ever for editors to consider what readers say they want to see in their newspaper. But taking readers' views into consideration is one thing; editing a newspaper based largely on focus group research is - shudder! - quite another. While newspapers published primarily for peer group approval and Pulitzer Prizes may ignore some issues of considerable relevance to their readers, newspapers published primarily in response to civic forums and public opinion polls will inevitably ignore or glide lightly over issues essential to the well-being of the family, the community, and a democratic society. Besides, studies have shown that most people don't really know what they want in a newspaper until they see it anyway; that's the invaluable serendipity factor that still helps give newspapers a big advantage over the tailored news of the Internet.

Thus, Rosen's diagnosis of the attenuated journalistic condition is substantially better than the treatment he prescribes through his book-length presentation of civic journalism initiatives undertaken by such papers as The Charlotte Observer, The Wichita Eagle, the Dayton Daily News, the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot and the Colorado Springs Gazette, among others.

In Dayton, for example, the imminent closing of a nuclear weapons plant and Defense Department supply center that provided 4,450 local jobs prompted the Daily News to publish a twelve-page special section intended to serve "as both a briefing on the plant and an invitation to further talk . . . about possibilities for converting the plant's resources and workforce to other use." A second special section presented four "what if" multiple uses for the site, including renderings by an architect the paper recruited.

"The newspaper secured unprecedented access to the plant," Rosen writes, "by persuading executives and government officials that it was serious about being constructive in its reporting." And therein lies at least one of the disquieting elements about civic journalism. Yes, journalism today is frequently destructive - of reputations, of the right to privacy, of any sense of community or possibility. But to promise to be constructive - even in so admirable a venture as trying to save thousands of jobs - ignores the possibility that the defense facilities might be found to be rife with corruption, conflict of interest, stupidity, and inefficiency, the reporting of which would hardly seem "constructive" to the officials who approved the newspaper's "unprecedented access." Then what? Rosen, I think - I hope - would say, "Report it." But we all know that self-censorship can be more inhibiting - and more invidious - than overt censorship. Would re porters acutely aware of their bosses' deep commitment to an important local project feel free to report wrongdoing in that project? I certainly hope so. But . . .?

And what of other civic journalism initiatives elsewhere in which members of the newspaper staff - reporters and editors alike - actually take participatory, even leadership positions, in the forums and related activities sponsored by their papers? How do they report on problems - logistical, ethical, or legal - that involve their colleagues and employers? Again, I hope they would report whatever they found, accurately and completely. But . . . ?

So far, most civic journalism has been practiced in small- and medium-sized cities, where newspapers have historically been more intimately connected to their communities than have big-city dailies. But it is precisely that connection - the publisher being perhaps a bit too cozy with the mayor, the police chief playing poker regularly with the police reporter - that has kept many such newspapers from providing their communities with the disinterested service they need and deserve. Working at a big-city newspaper - the Los Angeles Times - that for the first eighty years of its existence was so connected to its community and so determined to help lead it to the "right" course of action that it became a sinister behind-the-scenes kingmaker and a journalistic laughingstock, I am not eager to see other newspapers repeat that mistake, in cities large or small.

As Rosen points out, of course, the press is "already a player in public life," if only by virtue of its agenda-setting function and its contribution to the cynicism and disenchantment that so many citizens now feel toward the political process. But those roles are largely the byproduct, not the primary objective, of traditional journalism. Indeed, much of what passes for civic journalism is traditional journalism - good journalism, executed with intelligence, imagination, enthusiasm, and a sense of commitment to both the best precepts of the profession and the best interests of the community. But as Rosen also points out, many journalists no longer practice good, traditional journalism. That's why so many Americans are as critical of the press as they are of the politicians - and that's why the impetus toward civic journalism resonates with so many reporters and editors. They see it as a way of rediscovering their sense of purpose and of regaining their public credibility.

Critics dismiss civic journalism as, variously, an evangelical cult, front-office pandering to rebuild circulation, and even Pravda come to America. These critics misread both the intent and the appeal of the movement, and Rosen attempts, with varying degrees of success, to rebut each of these attacks in his book. But he never quite succeeds in dispelling the conviction that, as a cure for what ails the body politic (and the body journalistic), civic journalism is likely to prove worse than the disease. Just as people who want to be healthy and long-lived should rely on a good diet and regular exercise rather than faddish supplements and exotic herbs, so journalists eager for the health and longevity of their profession and their communities are better off returning to the practice of good journalism rather than swallowing the exotic supplement of civic journalism.

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