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The news delivers us to a space that journalists have themselves crafted. If they are inclined to forget this, the rest of us should not, for the crafting of an inhabitable world is perhaps the highest demand we can make on the people to whom we bestow press passes.
I tell the story of some of these people in my recent book, What Are Journalists For?, where I focus on that minority of the mainstream press who, after 1989, began to wonder how habitable their daily portrait was. Faced with a slow but discernible crisis in their craft, they began to ask some challenging questions: What should journalists bring back from a public square that seems too empty at times, and too far from what democracy requires? What should the press be trying to accomplish with its portrayal of the world, beyond the familiar demands for accuracy, fairness, balance (and profit)?
The people asking these questions were convinced that something was wrong - in journalism, in politics, and in the wider culture beyond. Democracy and its discontents were a major theme in the inquiry, and many who joined in it were discontented themselves: with their work, their sinking standing among citizens, the place they had carved out for themselves as professionals. Amid a mood of anxiety and alarm, they set out to understand democracy in a different way, so they could see journalism from another angle: as democracy's cultivator, as well as its chronicler. This reform effort in journalism has had a number of titles: I call it "public journalism"; some prefer "civic journalism," or sometimes "community journalism." There are several other names, but one general aim: to revise the work of the press so that it somehow supports a healthier public climate.
How to do that - and how to think about it - was unclear at the outset. The solution was to experiment with different vocabularies and the daily product of journalism. Politics and public life, journalism and its professional identity, didn't have to be as they are. If citizens could be encouraged to join in the action where possible, to keep an ear tuned to current debate, to find a place for themselves in the drama of politics, to exercise their skills, and to voice their concerns, then maybe democracy didn't have to be the desultory affair it seemed to have become. And maybe journalism, by doing something to help, could improve itself and regain some of its lost authority. This, then, was what the experiment, the movement, the debate, and the general buzz around public journalism were about. What kind of press might help Americans become not only informed, but also engaged?
A tale from the movement's early history:
In a midwestern city, a large defense plant that employs thousands of people in the area is about to be closed. Obviously, a big story. But how should the story be approached? The "news" is clear enough: it would explain when the shutdown begins, how and why the decision was made, the politics behind plant closings in Washington, the likely consequences for the region, the hardships ahead for the employees and their families.
But if this is the news, it is not the entire story, for in the wake of the news, the community faces a question: what do we do now? It is not the same question as "what happens next?" because what happens next may or may not depend on what people in the area decide to do, They may do nothing without really deciding on a null stance, especially if the available choices never rise to public consciousness. But engagement depends on other factors: the performance of elected officials, the reactions of business and labor, the strength of civic leadership, the ability of the news media to communicate what is at stake.
Met with the loss of jobs at a big employer, what sort of stance toward the event should a local newspaper take? By "stance" I do not mean the view of editorial writers who may speak their minds on the opinion page, although that is one option. Far more important is how the newspaper and its style of journalism stand toward the lingering question, "what do we do now?" and how they treat the discussion that develops around it. That discussion can be covered as news, if news happens. But it can also be suggested, modeled, coaxed to life by journalists who want to see it occur.
"I'd been one of those who thinks society is best served by journalists who cover the news," wrote Max Jennings, editor of the Dayton Daily News, in a 1995 essay. "I don't think this is good enough anymore.... More and more, I'm starting to think that journalists ought to be about the business of making discussion instead of just covering it."
A year earlier, Jennings had been confronted with the imminent closing of a nuclear weapons plant and Defense Department supply center that together provided 4,450 local jobs. He understood his newspaper had a choice. It could report news of the closing and the response of local leaders to it. Or it could take the initiative by helping to create public conversation about the implications of the plant's closing. This is what Jennings and his colleagues decided to do, and when they made that move they crossed into the territory of public journalism - but not because they wanted to be pioneers in their profession.
They simply recognized that enormous potential lay in danger of being wasted: highly skilled workers and some promising technology already developed at the weapons plant. They knew, as well, that daunting problems remained before these resources could be put to new and productive use. So they asked themselves how the newspaper might help "create broad public discussion about possibilities for converting the plant's resources and workforce," as Jennings put it.
To that end, the paper prepared a package of features on the weapons plant and its possible retooling, "to explain to the community and the nation as much as we could about the business potential of the plant." The final product featured a twelve-page special section intended as both a briefing on the plant and an invitation to further discussion. The newspaper secured unprecedented access to the plant by persuading executives and government officials that it was serious about being constructive in its reporting. It laid out a path that key players could follow to save the business by converting it to other uses, and included profiles of key employees and their phone numbers, should anyone want to contact them about next steps. Through photographs, graphics, opinion pieces, speculative reporting, and the detailed attention it gave to possible courses of action, the Dayton Daily News became more proactive in response to a broad public problem that demanded, in the paper's judgment, a creative response.
As Jennings wrote, "I was a long way from sitting back and waiting for the bureaucrats, politicians and civic leaders to act, then writing about that." One result of the Daily News' initiative was that hundreds of businesspeople agreed to tour the plant, discussing its possible conversion with officials there. Those tours illustrate the modest but tangible effect public journalism tries to achieve: more discussion at more sites, greater activity, deeper attention to the choices and opportunities before the community when it confronts a difficult but not impossible task. Still, the steps that followed from the newspaper's initiative had to draw their momentum from other actors: the plant's employees, its executives, possible investors, government officials, alert citizens. Presented with a "blueprint" by the newspaper, they had to modify or improve it by adding their own ideas. The Daily News could then resume its role as monitor of a dialogue that evolved away from the journalists who gave it the initial push.
Part of that push involved the effort to imagine alternatives the community might otherwise have neglected. In a similar package on keeping a large Air Force base alive as a base for jobs, the Daily News recruited an architect to complete a rendering of "what the facility might look like utilizing four ideas coming from the community." The resulting plan took top honors at the 1995 Ohio Planning Conference and led city officials to agree to take ownership of the site in 1997, with plans to develop it as an office/light industrial business park.
From having a problem to having a plan: with assistance from its newspaper, Dayton took ownership of a civic challenge and began to move on it. "We'll be aggressive quoting the doomsayers in the future," Jennings noted. "In the meantime, we have created two blueprints as a guide for dealing with two huge community projects." Comfortable in his evolving philosophy, he was able to challenge his colleagues: "Someone's going to have to convince me this is bad journalism."