Public Journalism

Abstract

Public journalism is a movement that arose principally among journalists in the United States during the late twentieth century, as an effort to draw the people to the media at a time of declining readership and viewership by showing the value of the media in civic life. Public journalism is also known as “civic,” or less often “community,” journalism. The movement developed in part as an answer to the decline of civic participation that scholars noted (Yankelovich 1991; Merritt 1998; Rosen 1999; Putnam 2000) at a time of renewal in many cities (Sirianni & Friedland 2001). Public journalism refocused news on issues and engagement using a community approach. Its founders believed that journalism could improve public dialogue by developing content that citizens engaged in the deliberative process could use in their communities to develop solutions to common problems.