Winter 1995
Public Journalism Primer
Dave Iverson
Executive Producer
WHA-TV
Madison, Wisc.
“Roger Mudd once asked: Why is it that politicians don’t give speeches any more? How come we just see them in hard hats, walking around and looking at lathes?
“The answer, of course, is that a politician in a hard hat is more likely to show up on the evening news than a politician’s speech. But it’s also true that the canned speech is not a whole lot more satisfying than the photo-op. In a sense, civic journalism is an attempt to go beyond both the politician in the hard hat and the politician giving a set speech.
“Part of what we have learned in our ‘We the People’ project is that civic journalism can take us beyond the photo opportunity to the ‘citizen opportunity’ and still be interesting to watch.”
MIZELL STEWART III
ASSISTANT CITY EDITOR
AKRON BEACON JOURNAL
“While public affairs journalism seeks to highlight community problems, public journalism engages readers — and by extension, the community — in a search for solutions.
“Public journalism goes a step further than simply telling readers that institutions are broken. It educates, entertains and informs just like good stories should, and drives home the point that readers can help fix what’s broken.
“Traditional issues coverage tends to rely on experts and pundits to help explain community problems and define issues of public concern. Public journalism seeks to turn this upside down, letting the people most affected both define the problem and suggest solutions.”
LOU HELDMAN
EXECUTIVE EDITOR
TALLAHASSEE DEMOCRAT
“Public journalism is a great concept, but a lousy name, so I try not to use it. What it has come to mean in Tallahassee is a structured way of listening to citizens and making them important in our identification and coverage of community issues.
“I believe we’re entering a golden age of public affairs journalism. What has been called public affairs journalism in the past has too often been government affairs journalism.
Newspapers that relentlessly place the focus on the power and responsibility of citizens will eventually find themselves reaching a larger and more engaged readership. That’s good for newspapers, for the individual communities we serve, and for our country.”
MATTHEW V. STORIN
EDITOR
BOSTON GLOBE
“Public affairs journalism is, to my mind, the coverage of public affairs as events and issues that we report and analyze. Public journalism takes the same events and issues and allows citizens a role in setting the agenda and offering their reactions and proposals. I believe there is a place for both forms.”
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