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Excerpts From The Forum
Research
Questions Tanni Haas writes that after he and Brian Massey did research, "We concluded that, contrary to what appears to be the conventional wisdom, public journalism has not had substantial impact on the attitudes and behaviors of journalists and citizens." Then he added, "Public journalism's most important contribution may have been to ignite a discussion on the role and responsibility of journalism in a democratic society rather than to enhance citizen involvement in democratic processes." Finally he writes, "The future of public journalism does not depend simply on creating forums where both scholars and practitioners can participate, but rather on creating opportunities for scholars and practitioners to learn from one another. A viable public philosophy for public journalism ought to be both theoretically sound, empirically well-grounded, and practically feasible." Cole Campbell answers by saying, "What we call public journalism to date is in fact a down payment on public journalism, or a series of early foundation stones being laid upon which public journalism, fully realized, can be erected. "So we need a public philosophy for public journalism -- and we need public practice of public journalism. A society in which scholars and practitioners learn from each other ought to advance both theory and practice." Jan Schaffer writes, "Lew Friedland and Sandy Nichols at the Center for Communication and Democracy, U-Wisconsin, recently completed a two-year analysis of 650 civic journalism projects the Pew Center had collected through 2001. "They concluded there was significant impact in the community and, if you look at editors' self-reports, it would appear that the journalism had notable impact on the journalists." And Friedland replies to Haas saying, "We have Tanni and Brian's picture, and ours. I'm not sure how to square them (if possible) until I read their piece. But I do want to say that Carmen (Sirianni) and I found that all civic innovation is difficult, complicated, and takes a very long time. Embedded institutions don't change very quickly. Ten years is a beginning. We have found cycles of civic innovation in community development for example that date back 40 years to the early sixties." Joining the discussion about the impact of civic journalism, David Kurpius, who has done extensive research on civic journalism and broadcast media, writes, "I tend to think about civic journalism as both an effort to change structures INTERNAL to the journalism organization and as an EXTERNAL force in public life...The question is what routines should be altered and for what purpose?" Kurpius says civic journalism has had an impact on television newsrooms
where it has been practiced. However, he writes, "Civic journalism,
particularly at television stations, has been hobbled by a lack of diffusion
of understanding and even discussion of civic journalism within newsrooms."
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