What's the next step for civic or public journalism? A cohort of journalists and academics believe it's a professional society of journalists who want to keep the movement's tenets alive.

A Charter Meeting for this new society is already set for January 24-25, 2003 at Kennesaw State University outside of Atlanta.

Drafts of the new organization's charter will be vetted in online forums during the months of November and December, 2002.

More than 50 journalists, academics and citizens from around the country and around the world have expressed keen interest in joining the conversation.

Gil Thelen, executive editor and senior vice president of the Tampa Tribune, said: "This society can be an important forum for continuing the vital conversation civic journalism has prompted for journalists. The society's work will extend this conversation for years to come."

Davis Buzz Merritt, one of the founders of the civic journalism movement, said, "The seeds of public journalism have been sown in many places over the last decade. It's appropriate now for journalists to imagine what its mature phase will be like, and this new organization is a good place to start."

In late July 2003, at the annual conference of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication in Kansas City, academics will meet with the society's new officers and be invited to start student chapters.

Kathy Campbell, visiting journalism professor at the University of Oregon and co-vice chair of the AEJMC's Civic Journalism Interest Group, said, "The traditional 'great divide' between journalism and academia has never existed in civic journalism--Buzz Merritt, Jay Rosen and Jan Schaffer have made sure of that. As we head into our second decade of experimentation and refinement with civic practices, it's crucial that we maintain and strengthen the bridge between us."

To join the conversation online or face-to-face in January at Kennesaw State University, contact:

Leonard Witt
Robert D. Fowler Distinguished Chair in Communication
Department of Communication
Kennesaw State University
1000 Chastain Road, Mail Stop #3102
Kennesaw, GA 30144-5591
770 423-6925; FAX 770 423-6740
Lwitt@kennesaw.edu

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