What Are Journalists For? - Hardcover

Rosen, Professor Jay

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0300078234 ISBN 13: 9780300078237

Publisher: Yale University Press, 1999

Synopsis

The public journalism movement emerged after the 1988 presidential election as a countermeasure against eroding trust in the news media and widespread public disillusionment with politics and civic affairs. In this book, public journalism advocate Jay Rosen recalls the history of the movement and explains how its innovations offer an opportunity to revitalize the press and improve civic life.

About this title

Reviews

Are journalists eyewitnesses who describe to a passive audience the actions of political insiders? Or are they catalysts to a public conversation and civic action? This debate is at the center of the development of "public journalism," a movement that Rosen, former director of the Kettering Foundation's Project on Public Life and the Press, helped found. This partisan but fair-minded history examines both theory and practice, as Rosen recounts the movement's intellectual roots, its adoption by some newspapers and reaction within the profession, including criticism from heavyweights like the New Yorker's David Remnick and the New York Times's Max Frankel. Some examples of public journalism are clearly salutary: a newspaper refuses to accept political candidates' framing of a campaign and instead queries the candidates on vital issues; another supplements local crime coverage with regular charts, so trends are not distorted by the sensationalist focus on particular crimes. But many journalists remain skeptical of a theory that may lead newspapers to start recommending civic solutions in their news pages. Rosen distinguishes between advocating projects (e.g., building a new stadium) and engaging citizens without recommending specific goals, offering responses to critics that are mostly thoughtful but don't resolve, for example, how public journalism ought to approach subjects readers should care about but don't, like foreign news. It's disappointing that Rosen does not muse on journalism as practiced by the European press, the American alternative press or even opinion magazines like the Nation or the New Republic. While none play the civic role of a dominating daily newspaper, they certainly resist framing issues according to newspaper conventions of objectivity. (Nov.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Rosen (journalism, New York Univ.) is best known for founding public journalism (also known as civic journalism), which aims to generate civic action; here he records the movement's history and goals. He argues that in an era of commercialized media, journalists have increasingly become distanced from their audience. While candidates spout rhetoric based on manufactured issues, playing to constituencies and cameras, journalists treat politics like an insider sport. The role of a responsible journalist should be to connect to citizens' concerns, helping them gain access to a democratic system. Critics of civic journalism say journalists' involvement in public issues could degrade to a market-driven posture or jeopardize their objectivity; to bolster his argument, Rosen quotes from highly regarded journalists, such as David Broder, James Fallows, E.J. Dionne, and Ted Koppel, who deplore current media trends. But the result is disappointing. Overwriting and repetitiousness suggest that the text would have been adequate as a magazine article. Recommended for journalism libraries only.AElaine Machleder, Bronx, NY
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0300078234
• ISBN 13: 9780300078237
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 352