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This paper was presented at the Association for Education in Journalism and
Mass Communication in San Antonio, Texas August 2005.
If you have questions about this paper, please contact the author
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Thank you.
Elliott Parker
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"CIVIC JOURNALISM IS JOURNALISM WITH ETHICS":
PRACTITIONERS SPEAK TO THE MORAL IMPERATIVE OF THEIR WORK
Dr. Rick Kenney
Nicholson School of Communication
University of Central Florida
COM 253
4000 Central Florida Blvd.
Orlando, FL 32818
407-823-4867
[log in to unmask]
and
Dr. Marie Hardin
Pennsylvania State University
"Civic Journalism Is Journalism With Ethics"
Introduction
Civic journalism[1] emerged in the late 1980s and early '90s as a
reaction to the perceived flaws of traditional journalism (Merritt,
1994; Rosen, 1991). The ideal of civic journalism centers on
journalists' newly supposed political and moral responsibility for
increasing citizens' engagement in democratic processes. The initial
concept of civic journalism prescribed that journalists must "play an
active role in supporting civic involvement, improving discourse and
debate, and creating a climate in which the affairs of the community"
can be aired and deliberated (Rosen, p. 3). This communitarian ideal
was first theorized by the authors of Good News: Social Ethics and
the Press (Christians, Ferre, & Fackler, 1993), which proposed a
normative ethical model in which the press abandons libertarianism
and assumes a key role in civic transformation. Communitarian
journalism has been posited at the foundation of the civic journalism
movement (Black, 1997; Rosen, 1991; Merritt, 1994), which presents a
diluted form of communitarianism with both ardent boosters and
virulent detractors (see Black, 1997, for a range of philosophical viewpoints).
Civic journalism has been practiced most noticeably at newspapers in
cities including Wichita, Kansas; Charlotte, North Carolina; Madison,
Wisconsin; and Savannah, Georgia. Lambeth and Craig (1995) estimated
that more than two hundred civic journalism projects had been
undertaken in the early 1990s, and a more recent study (Nichols,
Friedland, Cho, Rojas, & Shah, 2003) indicated that by 2002, as many
as 561 identifiable cases of public journalism had been published.
The movement has spun off its own cottage industry of journalism
awards, with cash prizes from journalism and civic foundations as
high as ten thousand dollars for newspapers cited for their
excellence in civic journalism. A similar cottage industry – but
without the same cash rewards – has sprung up for scholars who have
studied civic journalism's impact on communities and influences on
professional practices.
Rather than add to the voluminous effects studies and case-based
dissertations about content and culture change, this study seeks
instead to add perspective to the many-contoured landscape of how
civic journalism practitioners view the very ethics of what they do.
A qualitative analysis of a series of long interviews with reporters
and editors in one civic journalism newsroom, this paper seeks to –
in the spirit of communitarianism – give voice to the movement's
everyday "experiencers": those who conceive, carry out, and publish
the projects at the center of the decade-old debate over whether this
brand of journalism is effective or even ethical.
The authors of this paper seek to provide and to analyze
practitioners' responses to questions that aim at ethical issues that
arise particularly in civic journalism:
1. What is the relationship between civic journalism and journalism ethics?
2. What special ethical concerns do civic journalists have, and how
do they cope with those concerns?
3. How do practitioners react to the critique of civic journalism as
advocacy journalism?
Literature Review
The large body of research on civic journalism ranges from the
ambiguously anecdotal and didactic to consistently comparative cases.
Many of the studies reflect a concern with definition or evaluation
of the practice of civic journalism. Much of the resulting critique
has been negative and even hostile, including arguments that civic
journalism is just good traditional journalism (Shepard, 1994); that
it appears as advocacy or community "boosterism" anathema to
traditionally ethical journalism; and that it erodes the traditional
journalistic value of editorial independence by abdicating news
judgment and the news agenda to citizens and special-interest groups.
Such disparities in approach and conclusion would seem to present the
proverbial elephant's hide for the blindfolded to describe, but some
significant findings remain to be gleaned from the body of research
into public/civic journalism.
Case studies in civic journalism tend to focus on what Massey and
Haas (2002) term "jewel box" examples: civic journalism projects
published by the Wichita Eagle, Charlotte Observer, and Wisconsin
State Journal. Ostensibly, any such compilation of exemplars would
have to include The Pew Center for Civic Journalism's (2000) series
of twenty first-person narratives by what it identified as
accomplished civic journalists. Other popular typologies of research
include the definitional (Craig, 1996; Merritt, 1995; Rosen, 1991);
news writing or reportorial technique (Moscowitz, 2002; Parisi, 1997;
Willey, 1998); effects on journalists and audiences (see Massey &
Haas, 2002, for a meta-analysis of evaluative research; and Nichols,
Friedland, Cho, Rojas, & Shah, 2003, since then); influences and
evolution of coverage and content (Patterson & Hall, 1998; Riede,
1999); and, of course, journalism education (Gibbs, 1997; Haas &
Schroll, 2000; Killenberg & Dardenne, 1997; McDevitt, 2000).
A number of studies of civic journalism have sought to examine ethics
and its popular cognates: values, objectivity, independence, and
credibility. Arant and Meyer (1998) found that a majority of
journalists still adhere to journalism's traditional values of
independence and objectivity and do not support public journalism
values that depart from those. In his defense of objective
journalism, Ryan (2001) concluded that among the major proposed
alternatives, "objectivity seems to be the foundation for the public
journalism" as described by Arthur Charity (1995), one of the early
disciples of the public journalism movement. Woodstock (2002), in
arguing that public journalism was not revolutionary, contrasted a
popular critique of its tilt toward advocacy (see, e.g., Glasser,
1999) with Rosen's (1999) concept of "proactive neutrality" and found
striking similarities between it and traditional journalism. In fact,
Massey and Haas' (2002) critical review of forty-seven evaluative
studies on public journalism found that many of them "could be
reasonably interpreted as supporting the notion that public and
traditional journalism are not that different" (p. 576).
Researchers have found generally positive but idiosyncratic results
that were difficult to measure or apply elsewhere, as well as
relationships that were difficult to establish clearly. Bare (1995)
surveyed journalists at three newspapers about various practices and
behaviors of the public journalism they practiced there. Respondents
were asked, among other questions, about newspapers' role in helping
solve problems in the community and working with community groups on
civic projects, as well as about disseminating news quickly while
also providing analysis and interpretation of complex problems. The
survey asked about the existence and strength of three traditional
belief systems associated with public journalism — personal,
institutional, and community — and three traditional journalism
belief systems identified by Weaver and Wilhoit (1996) —
investigative/interpretive, information dissemination, and
adversarial — as well as two other belief systems — community
cynicism and "nonconsequentialism (objective detachment) — that Bare
posited himself. Bare also concluded that traditional and civic
journalism belief systems coexist; however, because civic journalism
at the Eagle had become the dominant institutional belief, when two
belief systems are in conflict, the more traditional belief system is
less important.
A wide array of the literature reflects an interest in journalists'
ethical reasoning, particularly influences and development. A Q-sort
study (Gade, Abel, Antecol, Hsueh, Hume, Morris, et al., 1998) helped
to produce a typology of journalists based on their responses to
questions about the role of the media in society and civic
journalism. The researchers created four journalist types accessible
for further study and use: neutral observers, civic journalists,
responsible liberals, and concerned traditionalists. A study (Gade,
2000) based on three years' consecutive surveys of employees'
attitudes throughout the evolution of one traditional newspaper into
a civic journalism newsroom showed the difficulty of changing
cultural values. Plaisance (2003) melded thoroughgoing survey results
with interview data to produce a values-based profile of journalists
for the purpose of suggesting ways in which media ethicists might
begin to build a theory of journalistic values. He found that being
"civic-minded" ranked seventh from the bottom of eighteen – just
above "clean," "loving," "obedient," "cheerful" and "forgiving." Most
recently, an ambitious meta-research project (Coleman and Wilkins,
2004) tested the findings of several quantitative and qualitative
studies over the years and began gathering baseline data for further
assessment and comparisons of journalists with other professionals.
Their study found that journalists who practiced civic journalism
scored significantly higher in moral development than those who did
not, with the exception of investigative journalists.
In more purely philosophical terms, however, less scholarly light on
the ethics of civic journalists has been thrown. Mixed News (Black,
1997) published a set of essays derived from a yearlong colloquium
featuring prominent media ethicists to hash over the moral merit of
civic journalism. The book's title should be construed as hopeful at
best since the majority of the contributing authors were less than
receptive to the idea of civic journalism and virtually hostile
toward the communitarian ideal on which it is based. Haas (1999)
focused on five principal examinations of civic journalism and works
found, overall, that scholars had failed to ascribe to civic
journalism a coherent public philosophy, without which the movement
likely would not gain enough momentum to attract converts. Coleman
(2000) delved the deepest into the ethical context for civic
journalism, building upon her earlier work (1997) describing the
intellectual antecedents of the movement. In her latter work, Coleman
illustrated how communitarian philosophy had developed as "a logical
underpinning" (p. 42) for civic journalism. Her work, like Good News,
the seminal articulation of communitarianism as a coming social
ethics for the press (Christians, Ferre, & Fackler, 1993), asserts
normative principles for theoretically derived civic journalists.
This survey of the extant literature revealed to us the need and the
niche for qualitative inquiry into civic journalists' ideas about the
ethical nature of their work.
Method
This study addressed the research questions through in-depth
interviews with 11 journalists who worked at a mid-sized (75,000
circ.) daily. The newspaper had gained national recognition (in the
form of grants and awards) through its initiation of a series of
civic journalism projects during the late 1990s and early 2000s.
The criteria for participation in these interviews were involvement
as a reporter or editor on at least one civic journalism project
within the past two years and willingness to participate in the
study. Ten of the participants were reporters or news editors. The
managing editor of the paper, who launched the civic journalism
initiative and was involved in all civic journalism projects, was
also interviewed. Interviews took place in a small conference room at
the newspaper.
Four men and seven women were participants. Their ages ranged from 28
to 52 years old. The journalists also had a range of journalism
experience; one reporter had worked in journalism for 31 years – all
at the same newspaper, and three reporters had five or fewer years'
experience. One participant reported gaining civic journalism
experience in her job with a previous employer, but all others
(including the managing editor) had gained all of their civic
journalism experience while at the paper.
Data collection. Semi-structured interviews were chosen to address
the research questions. Such interviews were deemed appropriate for
this research because they allow the researcher to explore attitudes,
values and "unique perspectives" of subjects in a way that provides
"texture and context" (Poindexter & McCombs, 2000, p. 271); such
interviews are valuable in allowing subjects to "tell their stories"
(Stacks & Hocking, 1999). The same researcher conducted all of the
interviewers, allowing for uniformity in approach. Because the
interviews were semi-structured, the researcher used a list of
questions but also used follow-up questions appropriate for each
interview (Berger, 2000).
Each interview began with a "grand tour" question (Crabtree & Miller,
1979): "What is civic journalism?" This invited participants to talk
at length about how they defined civic journalism and to describe
their experience with it. That question was followed with a series of
open-ended questions about civic journalism, such as how it had
influenced their reporting practice and how they saw it in relation
to traditional news reporting. Interviews lasted between 45 and 90
minutes. They were audiotaped and then transcribed.
Data analysis. Two researchers independently examined the
transcripts of the interviews for instances of language, descriptions
of content, particular uses of text, and units of information. Using
a variation of the constant comparison method (Lincoln & Guba, 1985),
units were examined individually and sorted into sets. The
researchers worked separately using the data sets to construct themes
that emerged from the dialogue. They then worked together to
construct the final themes.
Data was triangulated for trustworthiness. For a theme to be
included in the findings, researchers had to agree on the inclusion
of that theme. No themes were included unless supporting evidence of
the theme was found in at least half of the interview transcripts
(Goetz & LeCompte 1984).
Findings
Ethical Concerns
The civic journalists interviewed for this project were asked to
talk generally and specifically about newspaper ethics. Some of the
comments included in this section were derived also through responses
to other questions – for example, questions about comparing civic
journalism to traditional journalism. Comments relative to ethics
revealed patterns of three general themes for analysis: the idea that
journalism is ethical even if some journalists are not; the idea that
a civic journalism newspaper's participation in and sense of
responsibility toward community might lead it to push its own agenda;
and that such activism might constitute outright advocacy for a
cause. There was no unanimity on any of these three issues, though
the comments overall were favorable toward the newspaper, toward
civic journalism, and toward journalism.
Good journalism, bad journalists. None of the journalists interviewed
for this project expressed a clear belief that anyone at their paper
was wholly unethical because of the civic journalism being practiced
there. But several were of the mind that even if journalism in
general wasn't a problem, perhaps some practitioners were. One
reporter, Pat, openly said that journalists in general had become
increasingly unethical because they couldn't be trusted: "People
don't trust us, and I can't blame them. I think what the average guy
on the street sees is people working agendas into their stories, and
we're all guilty of that, from the top on down. … I think the
attitude of the reporter is going to be a real problem for us because
people are catching on." Later, Pat added that "it isn't just the
newspaper game." He said: "We know what we're supposed to do. But
it's like everything else. People cut corners. People just go against
everything they're taught."
Another reporter, Marlene, who among all of the reporters
interviewed, had the most experience on civic journalism projects,
said she had been skeptical of it at first; so, she conducted
extensive research into the history and background of the movement
before joining it.
… you have to retain enough of your traditional journalism training
and enough of that skepticism to make sure that you don't let civic
journalism run away with you. … You just have to be very, very
careful at some point. At regular intervals, you have to step back
and say, "All right, are we still doing journalism?" And if you have
a doubt you're still doing journalism, then you maybe need to take
two more steps back… it's foolish to unconditionally embrace civic
journalism … there's just too much potential there for abuse.
In the end, Marlene said she thought journalists in general and her
newspaper in particular were ethical, but only by choice: "…we try
hard not to be sensational. And I do think that we try to be ethical.
And we try to train our reporters."
Bailey was the only journalist among those interviewed who said she
thought all journalism ethics suffered from a lack of training in the newsroom:
I think we need them reinforced – constantly. Because what you
learned in journalism school thirteen years ago, you know, you
forget. ... So to be reinforced by editors or to be reinforced by, I
don't know, a little training … I think they're just basic tenets.
But it's constantly remembering, constantly doing them that I think
needs to be reinforced.
Others were less condemning of journalism and journalists, whether of
the civic variety or not. Aaron, a reporter, said he thought
journalism was an inherently ethical enterprise, but that "there's a
lot of crappy journalists out there. And I think a lot of the
journalists just lose sight of why they're doing what they're doing."
Brad, also a reporter, shared that view, saying that journalism's
guiding ethical principles were clear but that "it's just that people
don't pay attention to it. … people don't, they don't … bother? …
people don't follow them."
Danielle said she worried about journalism remaining true to its
"biggest philosophy" of truth-telling and wasn't sure whether civic
journalism was the "end-all and be-all" but that "a little civic
journalism can't hurt" in reforming journalism ethics.
Rebecca was more emphatic about civic journalism as an ethical project:
You know, civic journalism is journalism with ethics. Not to say that
there aren't other ways of doing ethical journalism that don't fall
under the umbrella of civic journalism. But civic journalism seems to
me to be a, a more ethical approach, and I guess that's because it's
less, it's less self-serving in a way. It's more about responsibility
and, you know, trust. … maybe it's a response to the feeling that we
need to be more ethical and that we-we have to maybe re-examine what
we do and make sure that we're not doing it simply to sell newspapers …
Marge also saw civic journalism as a more ethical journalism:
Balance is another area of ethics that there's an input from civic
journalism. Because it's too easy to reduce balance to "I got a pro
and I got a con, so the story's balanced." And I think every
journalism school teaches that that's not the whole story. But while
we teach that, there's not the alternative, "How else do I do it?" to
balance. … civic journalism could get at those things because you're
talking what a whole bunch of people are thinking.
Marge advocated raising civic journalism's banner even higher in the
arena of debate over journalism ethics. She acknowledged that "even
in civic journalism [admitting you had a point of view is] what gets
people nervous" but that she thought it "could be useful to admit
that at least as individuals we have positions on these things. And
if we could be up front about that, it wouldn't hurt anything …" She added:
I guess I see civic journalism as a way to make it clear that, you
know, ideally make it clear that, all right, you have opinions, and
that's not a horrible thing. You have experience and that's just a
part of being human, and it's better for readers to know what those
opinions and experiences are and go from there, and they can
interpret what you've written based on that if they want to. Because
this whole code of, we can't take a position, we can't vote, I think
that's crazy. … that whole area of journalism ethics is all pretend
and not based on real-life.
Moving from social responsibility to advocacy. John, a newsroom
manager, expressed the communitarian ideal underpinning civic
journalism in describing his newspaper's responsibility as to "define
the community as broadly as possible." To set a news agenda based on
"the power brokers and the chamber of commerce people," he said, was
"not really doing civic journalism."
Rebecca, a young reporter, expressed her affinity for civic
journalism for what she saw as its strong social responsibility
orientation: "… civic journalism validates that sense of what we do
is important and that we have a role to play and that we are, you
know, a representative of the public. … You know that you have a
higher responsibility."
Reporter Aaron's sense of social responsibility tilted toward
advocacy. Like Danielle, Rebecca, Joanne, and Marlene, he referred
several times to his newspaper "walking a fine line" in its civic
journalism, but he also said he thought the newspaper should err on
the side of the people: "We're the mouthpiece for the citizens out
there, not for city hall." Beyond that, Aaron expressed ambivalence
about how far across the line it was safe for his newspaper to go.
Should we press people? Should we help find funding out there to
bring this thing into town? I don't really know if that's crossing
the line. It's one of those things that I've thought about for a
little while. But I haven't come up with any answers. … one part of
me thinks like, yeah, I think we should and we've gone this far. Why
not just push for this thing to go forward and do everything we can
to make it reality? On the other hand, we're journalists. … I don't
know. It's one of those things. I don't know what we should do. I don't know.
Aaron added that "there's a way of doing that without, I mean, it's
hard to explain, but there's a way to do that without crossing the
traditional lines that generally play out without overstepping our
bounds as journalists. It's tough, but I think we can do it."
Joanne was more ambivalent, acknowledging that "sometimes, but not
habitually" it was okay for her newspaper to push its own agenda.
Unique among the journalists interviewed, she came close to invoking
a classical philosophical foundation – in this case, utilitarianism –
in justifying civic journalism as agenda-setting: "I think when it
serves a greater good. I mean, to me, the majority is going to win
every time depending on how egregious the issue may be. But ... I
feel it's okay to cross it, but you just can't abuse it. … So you
need a base … you need a home base somewhere … that you can see at
all times." Joanne concluded that her newspaper's civic journalism
had ultimately crossed that fine line and needed to get back to the
basics of journalism ethics.
I see, um, how connected our executive editor and ME is in the
community. And it's a real fine line sometimes because they're coming
to reporters and saying, :I heard this" or "I heard that" and "We
need this" and "We need that" and, you know, not being able to pull
away and say, "Yes, this is newsworthy" and "No, this is just my pet
personal project because I want to see it done."
Joanne's perspective was unique among her colleagues since she had
had worked in another civic journalism newsroom, where she had the
same concern about its ethics.
… as a reporter and the other reporters in that newsroom, we really
felt like we had crossed the line of propriety and trounced on it
because it was – we did not allow the community to develop its own
synergy. We forced it. And I think that in cases like that … we need
to just swallow our pride and step down, you know, from this
forefront role that we are playing. … it's getting a little old.
John, a newsroom manager, however, put the onus back on his reporters
and editors, saying, "I think the whole issue of journalism ethics
comes down to where each newsroom knows) where its line is. It's
like, for us, I want my staff to be involved in the community. I want
them to join stuff. But I don't want them to cover the stuff they join."
From agenda to advocacy. John, a newsroom manager, was willing to
step boldly across a traditional line – to advocate advocacy.
… quite frankly, I think sometimes the newspaper has to be an
advocate for certain things that don't have their own advocates. I
think in this town for example, seventy percent or fifty-six percent
of kids who are at or below the poverty line in public schools don't
have anybody, really, being an advocate for them. … so … we decided
we were going to be an advocate for at least getting the-changing the
nature of the conversation.
Danielle also accepted that sometimes civic journalism went further
than she and other journalists might be comfortable with: "I do think
we step over the line when you, when you commit to civic journalism.
I do think that you go over to this other side that you are, you
become part of the community and … we are part of it whether we like
it or not." She added:
I knew I was doing civic journalism and … I was so wrapped up in it
sometimes. And I had wondered if I – I got so wrapped up in it I was
aware of wrapped up in it I was. And maybe I was too close to things.
And that's when I would start … and care ... you know, begin to care
too much, really. … I had to, like, really step back and try to be as
fair as I could. … it becomes your heart … I don't think you can
really do civic journalism without believing in – in – in the cause
that you're writing about. … I think I just kind of kept trying to do
my job and – and just kept believing in the project and – and put
myself aside and tried, I guess.
Danielle said, however, that in hindsight, she would not have done
her job differently. "I learned a lot," she said. In fact, she said,
"it could change the whole scheme of things that, if there were a
little bit more of the radical in every journalist."
Brad found laughable the idea that any journalist could hide such
partialities. His comments about advocacy and agenda-setting in
journalism in general were punctuated by his own laughter, which
reflected bewilderment: "I mean, you're not going to pick a side? …
You think of civic journalism, we're not supposed to change, I guess,
the outcome of stuff. You're going to be totally objective. That's
ridiculous, because no one's going to be like that. You know, we are
journalists, but you see something going on. I know it's something I
see all the time."
But others rejected the idea of advocacy for their newspaper. Bailey
worried that her newspaper's brand of civic journalism "can come
across like, 'What are we promoting?'" She said she thought advocacy
in the news pages was unethical: "It's wrong for the reporters, so I
think it's wrong for the paper. … the editorial is where the
opinion's to come out." Instead, she said, her newspaper should be
saying, "There are people out there who already have both sides [of
an issue], and that's where it should be." Otherwise, Bailey said,
"If that's what civic journalism is, I don't agree with that."
Tori shared that view, saying "I felt that our project was to try to
force people to solve an agenda the way we felt they should do it. …
I think done the wrong way, it's unethical."
Asked to clarify his view on civic journalism as advocacy, John said:
"I think the newspaper can help communities solve problems. … when I
say advocate, I think, I'm … I – I mean, advocate for a group of
people or advocate for a solution to particular problems. But mostly
what that – what that means for us is to be moderator and
interpreter and a catalyst."
Conclusions
It is expectable that civic journalists, if they are aware at all of
the nature of the debate that has swirled around their enterprise,
have a heightened sense of the ethical concerns that have been
expressed by their colleagues elsewhere, if not by scholars in a less
popular context. Moreover, if they are experienced at all in
traditional journalism – which ritually eschews civic involvement and
advocacy, then civic journalists are likely to think a great deal for
themselves, and – like reporter Marge – to try to learn for
themselves about civic journalism and to understand just what it is
they are getting themselves into.
This study found that a dozen civic journalists in one newsroom noted
for its accomplishments expressed a range of attitudes, from disdain
to concern to triumph, about the ethical nature of their work. Any
number of factors might conceivably explain the range, from previous
experience to understanding the concept to simple job satisfaction.
Education, whether through a college journalism program,
institutional seminar, or newsroom training certainly could be
imagined a factor, too. In any case, the journalists in this study,
as well as those who read their words, may find it encouraging that
some thought, if not much industry training, has gone into the
formulation of ethical attitudes. On the other hand, scholars,
journalists, and citizen-readers might be properly alarmed for many
of the same reasons. Certainly, much work is left to be done in the
academy and in the industry to further educate journalists – and
students before they become journalists – in ethical decision-making.
Clearly, though reasonable people may continue to disagree about
civic journalism, there is not yet any "ethical comfort zone" in
which we all can co-exist.
As is often the case with qualitative research, this study represents
just a small addition to the body of scholarly literature in civic
journalism. But it is hoped that its heuristic value is evident, that
further qualitative research, especially in the often-challenging
method of the long interview, will follow. As noted, previous studies
have sought to ferret out the sources or agents of influence. For
years, mass media scholars (cf., Voakes, 1997) have largely rejected
the notion of autonomous agency in favor of socialization of
journalists' moral development. Researchers' concerns about vague
memory and recency and priming effects do not pertain to
conversation-based methods alone. Just as many quantitative studies
will continue to seek to determine influences and assess development,
the open-ended and reflexive value exclusive to the long interview
method could produce further valuable findings and expand the field
of knowledge about civic journalism ethics. Journalists, after all, are stor
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