The Role of Newspapers in Building Citizenship
Jan Schaffer
Executive Director
Pew Center for Civic Journalism
The rise of new information technologies are prompting new questions, such as:
- “Who is a journalist?”
- “What is journalism?
As access to online publishing platforms becomes more available, ordinary citizens are starting to participate in gathering and delivering news. In some cases they are watchdogging news organizations and reporting stories we got wrong. In other cases, they are reporting the news before journalists discover it. And they are also focusing on hyper-local community news that most newspapers don’t have the resources to cover. So, we must also figure out ways to embrace new ideas, such as participatory journalism and citizens journalists, while holding onto old ideals. And I don’t know how a government could begin to control that.
Meanwhile, bad journalism habits have given rise to such initiatives as civic journalism. Civic journalism aims to help return journalism to its core mission -- to give people the news and information they need to do their jobs as citizens.
Alexis de Tocqueville, the Frenchman who was a keen observer of American life, said some 170 years ago: "You can't have real newspapers without democracy, and you can't have democracy without newspapers."
A level of interdependence is a defining part of our journalistic mission. And it is one of the reasons newspapers in the U.S. and elsewhere are often given special constitutional protection.
I’ve been asked to speak to you today about civic journalism and give you some ideas of how to practice it. Civic journalism has focused not only on some problems of journalism, but also possible solutions.
It has sought to:
- Restore good journalistic habits.
- Build connections with readers.
- Get better stories.
- Build better citizens.
It's no longer enough for journalists themselves to think they are doing a good job. Readers have to agree that a free press plays an essential role in our democratic society for journalists to merit their special place.
Civic journalists are motivated by deep concerns about contemporary journalism. Media surveys tell us that the public believes that the lines between reporting and commentary have become blurred; the lines between entertainment and news have become blurred. Journalists seem to be unable to "get it right." The news media are spending more time serving elites than ordinary citizens. People tell pollsters that the media is out of touch with the public. They also say that journalism is motivated by commercial interests, which are driving sensational coverage.
Jim Lehrer, anchor of the respected NewsHour on U.S. public television, commented a few years ago: "Journalism, as practiced by some, has become something akin to professional wrestling -- something to watch rather than believe." He may have a point.
It doesn’t help that reporters have developed some bad habits. We:
- Act rushed
- Hover with our notebooks
- Ask loaded questions
- Expect very fast answers to our questions
- Write down only the quick quote – and stop listening
- Show up only when there are problems
- Sometimes, engage in corrupt behavior.
In 1993, a non-profit foundation in the United States, The Pew Charitable Trusts, entered the picture. But the Pew Trusts was not concerned about journalism; its fortunes were made in the oil business. Rather Pew was concerned about civic engagement. The foundation was worried people were not voting, not volunteering and not participating in civic life.
The Trusts feared that democracy was broken. And they wondered, in part, if it was because journalism was broken, too.
Among the questions civic journalists asked: Were we creating a nation of spectators watching a daily civic freak show instead of a nation of citizen participants engaged in the issues and the choices that must be made in a self-governing society?
Civic journalists wanted to see if it was possible to:
- Retain the media’s watchdog role, spotlighting corruption and injustices.
- Abandon the attack dog role that seemed to be just creating a lot of noise in a very noisy media environment.
- Add the duties of a guide dog – we say “seeing-eye dog” -- helping people figure out what kind of roles they could play in a democracy beyond simply casting a ballot.
In other words, could you hold citizens accountable for doing their jobs as citizens, much as you would hold public officials accountable for their actions in public office?
It is not surprising that civic journalism started in the early 1990’s, experimenting with new kinds of election coverage. Civic journalists sought to:
- Avoid reporting on horse-race polls – who’s ahead, who’s behind? Unfortunately, this coverage is out of control in the current U.S. presidential campaign, and I would suggest that it often leaves voters thinking: If we know who’s going to win, why bother to vote?
- Increase issues-based election coverage – focusing on voter issues, not the issues that candidates tout to move niche constituencies –such as abortion control, or gun control, or gay marriage in the United States.
- Frame election stories as hiring decisions: Who do we want to hire to run our government? And what kinds of information do voters need to make that decision?
Excerpt from: Keynote to 5th Brazilian Newspaper Congress São Paulo, Brazil September 13, 2004
