The Pursuit of Public Journalism is an engaging introduction to the theoretical foundations and practices of the journalistic reform movement known as 'public journalism.' Public journalism - stated briefly - seeks to reinvest journalism with its fundamental responsibilities to democracy and public life. This book argues against many deeply ingrained practices ranging from journalistic detachment to framing stories via polar conflict in favor of greater civic involvement on the part of journalists. Tanni Haas traces the historical context in which public journalism emerged, develops a philosophy for public journalism, reviews empirical research on public journalism’s performance to date and responds to the major criticisms directed at public journalism. He also examines the particular challenges that public journalism poses to curriculum and instruction: how can journalism educators teach students to write stories useful and of concern to citizens, and how can they encourage citizens to publicly criticize news coverage of given topics? Following review of the major challenges and criticisms of public journalism, the author offers practical solutions for improving public journalism and speculates on public journalism’s likely future.

This volume offers a critical and constructive examination of the claims of public journalism, the controversial movement aimed at getting the press to promote and indeed improve (not merely report on) the quality of public life. From leading contributors, original essays refine the terms of the debate by situating it within a broad cultural, historical and philosophical framework. Exploring the movement's promise as well as its problems, The Idea of Public Journalism sheds lights on issues of political power, freedom of expression, democratic participation and press responsibility.

The original edition of Public Journalism and Public Life, published in 1995, was the first comprehensive argument in favor of public journalism. Designed to focus the discussion about public journalism both within and outside the profession, the book has accomplished its purpose. In the ensuing years, the debate has continued; dozens of newspapers and thousands of journalists have been experimenting with the philosophy, while others still dispute its legitimacy. This larger second edition further develops the philosophy, responds to the arguments against it, outlines how specific principles can be applied, and explains the importance of public deliberation and the role of values in public journalism. Divided into three sections, it can be used as a supplement to the first edition or as a starting point for those being newly introduced to the ideas that have been the subject of debate within the profession and among those interested and involved in civic life at all levels. Section 1 summarizes two major arguments -- why journalism and public life are inseparably bound in success or failure and why the way journalism operates in the current environment fosters failure more often than success. Section 2 looks at the evolution of the profession's culture, its impact on the author's extensive career, and how he grew to believe that substantive change is needed in journalism. Section 3 deals with the implications of public journalism philosophy -- how it requires the application of additional values to daily work, its evolution in the early years and where its current focus should be, plus various questions about the future of cyberspace.

Where does journalism fit in the media landscape of blogs, tweets, Facebook postings, YouTube videos, and literally billions of Web pages? Public Journalism 2.0 examines the ways that civic or public journalism is evolving, especially as audience-created content—sometimes referred to as citizen journalism or participatory journalism—becomes increasingly prominent in contemporary media. As the contributors to this edited volume demonstrate, the mere use of digital technologies is not the fundamental challenge of a new citizen-engaged journalism; rather, a depper understanding of how civic/public journalism can inform citizen-propelled initiatives is required. Through a mix of original research, essays, interviews, and case studies, this collection establishes how public journalism principles and practices offer journalists, scholars, and citizens insights into how digital technology and other contemporary practices can increase civic engagement and improve public life. Each chapter concludes with pedagogical features including: * Theoretical Implications highlighting the main theoretical lessons from each chapter, * Practical Implications applying the chapter's theoretical findings to the practice of citizen-engaged jouranlis, *Reflection Questions prompting the reader to consider how to extend the theory and application of the chapter. blogging and other participatory journalism practices enabled by digital technology are not always in line with the original vision of public journalism, which strives to report news in such a way as to promote civic engagement by its audience. Public Journalism 2.0 seeks to reinvent public journalism for the 21st century and to offer visions of how digital technology can be enlisted to promote civic involvement in the news.

Public relations and journalism have had a difficult relationship for over a century, characterised by mutual dependence and - often - mutual distrust. The two professions have vied with each other for primacy: journalists could open or close the gates, but PR had the stories, the contacts and often the budgets for extravagant campaigns. The arrival of the internet, and especially of social media, has changed much of that. These new technologies have turned the audience into players - who play an important part in making the reputation, and the brand, of everyone from heads of state to new car models vulnerable to viral tweets and social media attacks. Companies, parties and governments are seeking more protection - especially since individuals within these organisations can themselves damage, even destroy, their brand or reputation with an ill-chosen remark or an appearance of arrogance. The pressures, and the possibilities, of the digital age have given public figures and institutions both a necessity to protect themselves, and channels to promote themselves free of news media gatekeepers. Political and corporate communications professionals have become more essential, and more influential within the top echelons of business, politics and other institutions. Companies and governments can now - must now - become media themselves, putting out a message 24/7, establishing channels of their own, creating content to attract audiences and reaching out to their networks to involve them in their strategies Journalism is being brought into these new, more influential and fast growing communications strategies. And, as newspapers struggle to stay alive, journalists must adapt to a world where old barriers are being smashed and new relationships built - this time with public relations in the driving seat. The world being created is at once more protected and more transparent; the communicators are at once more influential and more fragile. This unique study illuminates a new media age.

He traces the intellectual roots of the movement and shows how journalism can be made vital again by rethinking exactly what journalists are for."--Jacket.

Is democracy as we know it in danger? More and more we confront one another as aggrieved groups rather than as free citizens. Deepening cynicism, the growth of corrosive individualism, statism, and the loss of civil society are warning signs that democracy may be incapable of satisfying the yearnings it itself unleashes - yearnings for freedom, fairness, and equality. In her 1993 CBC Massey Lectures, political philosopher Jean Bethke Elshtain delves into these complex issues to evaluate democracy's chances for survival.

Journalism and Climate Crisis: Public Engagement, Media Alternatives recognizes that climate change is more than an environmental crisis. It is also a question of political and communicative capacity. This book enquires into which approaches to journalism, as a particularly important form of public communication, can best enable humanity to productively address climate crisis. The book combines selective overviews of previous research, normative enquiry (what should journalism be doing?) and original empirical case studies of environmental communication and media coverage in Australia and Canada. Bringing together perspectives from the fields of environmental communication and journalism studies, the authors argue for forms of journalism that can encourage public engagement and mobilization to challenge the powerful interests vested in a high-carbon economy – ‘facilitative’ and ‘radical’ roles particularly well-suited to alternative media and alternative journalism. Ultimately, the book argues for a fundamental rethinking of relationships between journalism, publics, democracy and climate crisis. This book will interest researchers, students and activists in environmental politics, social movements and the media.

In July 1997, twenty-five of America's most influential journalists sat down to try and discover what had happened to their profession in the years between Watergate and Whitewater. What they knew was that the public no longer trusted the press as it once had. They were keenly aware of the pressures that advertisers and new technologies were putting on newsrooms around the country. But, more than anything, they were aware that readers, listeners, and viewers — the people who use the news — were turning away from it in droves. There were many reasons for the public's growing lack of trust. On television, there were the ads that looked like news shows and programs that presented gossip and press releases as if they were news. There were the "docudramas," television movies that were an uneasy blend of fact and fiction and which purported to show viewers how events had "really" happened. At newspapers and magazines, celebrity was replacing news, newsroom budgets were being slashed, and editors were pushing journalists for more "edge" and "attitude" in place of reporting. And, on the radio, powerful talk personalities led their listeners from sensation to sensation, from fact to fantasy, while deriding traditional journalism. Fact was blending with fiction, news with entertainment, journalism with rumor. Calling themselves the Committee of Concerned Journalists, the twenty-five determined to find how the news had found itself in this state. Drawn from the committee's years of intensive research, dozens of surveys of readers, listeners, viewers, editors, and journalists, and more than one hundred intensive interviews with journalists and editors, The Elements of Journalism is the first book ever to spell out — both for those who create and those who consume the news — the principles and responsibilities of journalism. Written by Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel, two of the nation's preeminent press critics, this is one of the most provocative books about the role of information in society in more than a generation and one of the most important ever written about news. By offering in turn each of the principles that should govern reporting, Kovach and Rosenstiel show how some of the most common conceptions about the press, such as neutrality, fairness, and balance, are actually modern misconceptions. They also spell out how the news should be gathered, written, and reported even as they demonstrate why the First Amendment is on the brink of becoming a commercial right rather than something any American citizen can enjoy. The Elements of Journalism is already igniting a national dialogue on issues vital to us all. This book will be the starting point for discussions by journalists and members of the public about the nature of journalism and the access that we all enjoy to information for years to come.

Facebook, a platform created by undergraduates in a Harvard dorm room, has transformed the ways millions of people consume news, understand the world, and participate in the political process. Despite taking on many of journalism’s traditional roles, Facebook and other platforms, such as Twitter and Google, have presented themselves as tech companies—and therefore not subject to the same regulations and ethical codes as conventional media organizations. Challenging such superficial distinctions, Philip M. Napoli offers a timely and persuasive case for understanding and governing social media as news media, with a fundamental obligation to serve the public interest. Social Media and the Public Interest explores how and why social media platforms became so central to news consumption and distribution as they met many of the challenges of finding information—and audiences—online. Napoli illustrates the implications of a system in which coders and engineers drive out journalists and editors as the gatekeepers who determine media content. He argues that a social media–driven news ecosystem represents a case of market failure in what he calls the algorithmic marketplace of ideas. To respond, we need to rethink fundamental elements of media governance based on a revitalized concept of the public interest. A compelling examination of the intersection of social media and journalism, Social Media and the Public Interest offers valuable insights for the democratic governance of today’s most influential shapers of news.