Ch 11: Putting the Public back into Journalism.

Chapter 11:

People power has been an important part of journalistic vernacular since the dying days of the Marcos era, when reporters bought the world pictures of the Filipino runs forming human barricades in the path of oncoming tanks, and other dramatic images of mass political activism.

Proponent of a new style of journalism, public journalism have challenged such attitudes ["tell it as it is and let the chips fall where they may"] in an attempt to respond to the declining audience levels and increasing community alienation from old-style news and traditional political processes.

WHY REPORTING NEEDS REFORM:

Public disengagement with the media has consequences not only for the media profitability but also for public participation in a wider political process.

Australians do not get involved in politics.

News audiences can regularly expect that journalists will serve up a cacophony of contradictory claims from compete ting sources.

MORE THAN STYLE:

It is relatively easy to train journalists to improve their style and content of the reporting but it may require a major shift in organisational and professional culture to address the root of the problem - the relevance and interests of news topics to audiences.

Conventional rules help journalists make value judgements about which event or problem should be further examined and published.

Innumerable sociological studies have shown that, to a large degree, news agendas revolve around the agendas set by public servants, politicians and businesses leaders, rather than those of the ordinary person on the street. This is because most news organisations base this journalists at the centre of political and economic power, where they can guarantee the authoritative sources will provide regular flows of information.

Public journalism differs from the standard approach to news in 3 major ways:
- it allows he pubic to drive the agenda of what is reported
- it attempts to include the public in a discussion rather than merely throw information at the audience as it come to hand.
- This it aims to help the public in decision about significant community issues.

SOURCE OF INSPIRATION FOR PUBLIC JOURNALISM:

Public journalism similar to development journalism which was promoted in this world countries since the 1960's.

Development journalism: aims to allow journalists to cover complex development processes in languages simple enough for the poorly educated to understand.

Hostility of US journalists to development journalism.

Public Journalism emerged in the US in the late 1980's.

Davis Buzz Merritt and Jay Rosen helped initiate the public journalism concept.

Rosen credit 3 key figures in helping with the movement.
- Knight-ridder INC.
- Dallas Morning news editor
- Washington Post columnist

PUBLIC JOURNALISM IN PRACTICE:

Public journalism may involved a variety of market research techniques:
- focus groups
- qualitative and quantitative opinion polls
- public forums
- other survey instruments.

Public journalism prioritises background and content that enable the public to dip into a story and follow the currents of the debate without being experts on the issue.

CRITICISMS:

- Despite the positive outcomes of public journalism the journalistic community has not been unanimously supportive of this new approach.
- The underlying philosophy has been questioned, blaming public journalism for excessive political correctness and erosion of basic journalistic standards.
- Other have condemned the public journalism technique claiming it to be sloppy.
- Finally some have noted how public journalism does not suit the commercial needs of some news organisations, which need to gather information quickly from sources seen as reliable experts.

CONCLUSION:

Public Journalists techniques must still be understood as experimental.
There is yet to be a perfect journalistic formula.

There are however five key suggests which may make successful public journalism:
1. Establishing the Agenda: public journalism should be user friendly as it defines issues that are important to the community and should structure the arguments on these issues in a meaningful way.
2. Dedicating the resources: there must be a willingness to commit significant editorial resources to the project/.
3. Setting the timetable: a program should be established.
4. Obtaining feedback: members of the public should be able and feel free to express their opinions and give feedback on articles and issues.
5. Analysing the activities ans Outcomes: measuring public satisfaction if a difficult task but one which should be attempted in order to gauge an appropriate public response.