Spring 1997
“With the People”
The Pew Center has just published a new 40-page booklet showcasing ideas from newspapers around the country for making news stories more interactive.
The ideas came from entries in the 1996 Batten Awards for Excellence in Civic Journalism as well as from other civic journalism initiatives. They all demonstrate that as civic journalism is evolving, citizen participation is a defining feature.
Civic journalism is both an attitude and a set of tools. The attitude is an affirmation that journalists have an obligation to give readers and viewers the news and information they need to make decisions in a self-governing society.
The emerging tools try to help readers and viewers see how they can be active participants, not only in building news coverage, but also in building their communities.
Simply raising an alarm or spotlighting an injustice is traditional journalism. But citizens these days need more help. They need to see some ways they can play a role, have a voice, or make a difference — some ways they can reclaim their participation in civic life.
For journalists, citizens help them do better journalism. And citizens, once invited and once engaged in a menu of opportunities, seem to be developing a civic appetite.
So how do you involve citizens and still do good journalism? Civic journalists are experimenting with techniques that are making the printed page as interactive as a web site. And they are using all of the evolving new communications technologies — the Internet, e-mail, voice mail, faxes.
The journalists’ goal is to treat readers and viewers, not as window dressing and not as passive spectators, but as meaningful participants in important issues, as meaningful as the elites and the experts journalists so often quote.
Last year’s Batten Award entries demonstrated, again and again, how editors and news directors, reporters and producers were building into their news reports opportunities to interact with readers and viewers — while adhering to such cherished journalistic values as accuracy, independence, fairness and objectivity.
These journalists were developing reporting techniques that departed from the traditional model, the one-way downloading of information, and instead were creating opportunities for two-way information exchanges.
This booklet shows how journalists have invited citizens to tackle community problems, to come up with ideas, recommendations, action plans — citizens’ ideas not the news organizations’. These stories tackle the worst pathologies in communities — crime, youth violence, economic devastation.
As for the journalists, involving citizens in framing problems, devising solutions, and simply talking with their fellow citizens created new and richer listening posts that deepened their connections to their communities. In part, that’s because the journalists were starting their coverage where citizens start — with solid legwork in the communities. As significant, they looked upon their readers and viewers as important as the other sources and subjects of their stories.
To order a copy, call the Pew Center: 202-331-3200.