NAVIGATION

Journalism
Will technology bring new sources of high-quality information and commentary on public affairs?

1People believe that journalists have lost touch with everyday people, and hope that interactive technologies will help them reconnect with the public.

2Digital technologies are undermining traditional news organizations by luring away portions of the advertising base and fragmenting their audience.

3The nonprofit sector has an important role to play in fostering a journalism that serves the needs of a democratic society.

4New technologies are enabling many nontraditional publishers to offer high-quality public interest information.

5Journalists and other publishers must seek to pull disparate segments of our fragmenting communities together and create public spaces where democratic discourse can occur.

StarNet, the online version of the Arizona Daily Star, is adding a whole new dimension to the process of reading the newspaper.

Online subscribers to the Tucson newspaper can read not only what the editors serve them each day, but also all the articles and wire-service stories that did not find their way into the regular edition. Anybody who believes the editors overlooked an important story can post it on the "community front page." Readers can also write columns for the "community editorial page." And those seeking more background information can explore a steady stream of links to outside sources, as well as to the Daily Star's own archives.

StarNet's community pages tell us a lot about the emerging new world of digital journalism. It is a world in which individuals have access to as much information as many professional newsrooms—and unprecedented opportunities to talk back to their information providers, or even to publish their own slant on the news. But this brave new world has its troubling aspects, too. With the mass audience for news scattering among a widening array of news and information providers, how can we find sources that are reliable? More broadly, how can we maintain a shared definition of reality upon which to base democratic decisionmaking? And where can we find a common forum in which to debate issues so that we can take collective action?

Finding the answers to these questions is one of the most urgent challenges we face in defining the public interest in the Information Age.

Context
Individuals now have access to as much information as once could be found only in professional newsrooms. But we still need trustworthy institutions to help us find the information we need, organize it so we can use it effectively, and provide a forum in which we can explore its implications. As journalists navigate the turbulent waters of the digital era, much is at stake.

    What's at Stake
  • In an age in which everybody from government agencies and corporations to interest groups and individuals can reach the public directly, we still need independent institutions to help sift, assess, and organize the news for us.
  • We need information providers who will address our needs as citizens looking for ways to participate in community affairs, not just as consumer or members of narrow interest groups.
  • As communities fragment, public interest information providers must find ways to create public spaces where disparate groups can come together to consider collective action.

1What do people want from journalists?

In 1995 the American Society of Newspaper Editors hired the Harwood Group, a Bethesda, Md., research firm, to explore what the public wants from the press in this new era. The researchers found that most people still want journalists to do what they have always sought to do—ferret out the information we need, certify its accuracy, and help foster public discussion concerning its meaning.

Unfortunately, many people believe journalists are not doing their job well. According to Harwood, people have come to view the press as part of an out-of-touch elite that has "pushed them out" of the political process and "left them little room to understand, engage, and make a difference."

New technologies could provide part of the answer by helping journalists to add depth and texture to their coverage, by enabling them to incorporate more voices into their reporting and by giving the public new ways to provide feedback. That outcome is not guaranteed, but Harwood's research suggests there is a market for journalism that is more responsive. "People are not demanding real-time, stop-the-presses responses from newspapers and journalists so much as they are looking for a clear sense that newspapers and journalists are taking into account what is important to them," the researchers reported.

2Can journalism survive?

Even if journalists can rebuild their ties to the public, though, new technologies threaten the economic foundation of the traditional press. Newsmakers and advertisers can now reach their audiences directly. Readers can turn to nonjournalistic information providers for everything from sports scores and weather forecasts to stock market reports and job listings. And new journalism enterprises, often targeted to highly specific demographic or affinity groups, threaten to carve up the news audience into numerous small niches.

News organizations are fighting back, but in some cases the cure seems worse than the disease: some mainstream news organizations have slipped into tabloid sensationalism, while others have sought to make the news more entertaining by carrying raucous gabfests featuring celebrity pundits or flimsy "human interest" stories. These trends suggest that we cannot count on commercial interests exclusively to bring journalism through its current crisis. The nonprofit sector has a role to play as well.

3The role of nonprofits

Nonprofit organizations like the Pew Charitable Trusts have helped shape what Michael Schudson, a University of California sociologist, calls the first genuine social reform movement in the history of American journalism. Civic journalism holds that the press should help citizens to participate effectively in public life. With Pew's financial support, reporters have been spending more time listening to everyday people, convening focus groups, organizing public gatherings, and consciously shaping news coverage to serve ordinary citizens rather than elites.

"Civic Lessons," a report Pew issued this spring, found that citizens in four cities where news organizations engaged in civic journalism projects "were thinking more about politics, had a better idea about problems important in their areas, and wanted to be more involved in making their city a better place to live."

Separately, the Public Broadcasting Service is seeking to create, through its "Democracy Project," a "laboratory for inventing the news of the future." Ellen Hume, the project's director, says that the goal is to explore the grassroots implications of government policies and focus on "solutions instead of just talking about the latest outrage." The American News Service, operated by the nonprofit Center for Living Democracy, already provides a rich archive of news stories that focus on ways in which citizens are taking more direct responsibility for how their communities function.

4Nontraditional publishers

By reducing publishing costs, computer-based communications are enabling numerous organizations that have not traditionally served as publishers to offer high-quality information about public affairs. The American Reporter, for instance, is a cooperative of journalists seeking to operate free of the constraints imposed by the commercial interests that own most news organizations.

Town Hall elegantly presents the world view of leading conservative think tanks. The American Prospect's Economic Policy Network does the same thing for generally left-of-center groups. With HandsNet, social-service professionals use the electronic billboard approach to exchange information. And the Journal of Criminal Justice and Popular Culture, a thoughtful exploration of crime and society by scholars at the State University of New York, illustrates how academics are shedding light on issues that often generate mostly heat on the 11 o'clock news.

5Nurturing community

As the mass audience for news scatters among numerous information providers, however, traditional news organizations are in perhaps the best position to pull disparate segments of society together.

The Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Wash., has been trying for some time to build bridges between members of a scattering community. Recently, while preparing a series on people who have dropped out of mainstream society, reporters noted that many people no longer read the paper but do participate in online meetings. So the paper informed its readers how they could go online to rebuild connections. The paper also has sought to present some of its findings on talk-radio shows to reach another part of its vanishing audience.

Such efforts demonstrate that digital technologies alone will not automatically create the kind of public spaces we will need for our communities and democratic traditions to thrive. "Technology is not enough," writes Wichita Eagle editor Davis "Buzz" Merritt, himself a skeptic about the supposed wonders of the digital age. "Journalism in the electronic future will, even more than now, need to be capable of creating publics, finding and defining shared relevance, and creating an agora."

Ellen Hume"New technologies are accelerating a shift of power away from traditional voices of authority in journalism and politics. Both institutions are uneasy, for good reason: their roles are being challenged by new competitors, and their audiences are restless."
—Ellen Hume
Director of the Democracy Project at PBS


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