Civic Journalism

In the midst of criticism surrounding the coverage of 1988 presidential election, an idea for reform came from journalists active in traditional media and in academe. Jay Rosen, a Columbia University professor, and A. Davis "Buzz" Merritt Jr., a Wichita Eagle senior editor, suggested a change in the culture of journalism. "Rather than assuming that a vibrant civic culture exists — or simply lamenting its absence," Rosen wrote, "the public [civic] journalist takes responsibility for helping to support and even create it."11 Journalists have a vested interest to help in this, according to Rosen, because, "Without an engaged and concerned public, even the most public-minded press cannot do its job."12 Rosen and Merritt have worked to create and expand civic journalism with the support of the Kettering Foundation and the Pew Charitable Trusts. Until recently, they have been reticent to provide a definition of civic journalism for fear of squelching dialogue among journalists about its merits or discouraging experimentation, but here's how Editor Merritt explained it to readers of his newspaper:

"You [citizens] will read and hear your own voices, as reflected in surveys and interviews, describing what you see as the problems. And, if you are serious about becoming involved, you will read and hear your own ideas and those of your peers about solutions. And you will have clear information about how to get involved, how to personally make a difference."13

In 1996, when asked for his own definition, a local journalist in a Good News/Good Deeds focus group had this to say:

"I think it is more an idea of listening to the people and to the readers and voters and citizens and viewing them more as a citizen... and trying to give them what they need to make intelligent choices... The newspaper might sponsor some citizen forums. Or [it might partner] with even the competitors... and do a statewide poll and let the readers — the people who are polled — determine what are the five most important campaign issues. [After that, the paper might] call a citizen forum and make those questions — not what the politician may want, but those questions — the focus of the debate."

Several local media organizations have launched civic journalism projects in the past few years. One of the most visible in the Seattle area is "The Front Porch Forum," a partnership of The Seattle Times, KCTS-TV Channel 9, KUOW-FM and KPLU-FM begun in 1994. The project is among several nation-wide, which are supported by the Pew Center for Civic Journalism. Pew spends $1 million annually by subcontracting with media partnerships to experiment with civic journalism models. The funds pay for project coordinators and public events, not for items that would already be part of a news organization's budget.

The Seattle Times and its partners focused initially on municipal, state, and congressional elections. Through regional polls, focus groups and candidate forums, the media partners identified a "citizens' agenda" to help guide their election coverage. Using similar methods, the Front Porch Forum more recently explored citizens' concerns about regional growth and whether it could be slowed or stopped.

Recognizing the validity of a "citizens' agenda" is key. In 1997, Mike Phillips, currently publisher of The Sun, a medium-sized daily in Kitsap County, WA, told Good News/Good Deeds why his paper is committed to embedding the philosophy of civic journalism into newsroom culture and daily practice, rather than isolating it in special projects. "Civic journalism," he said, "is journalism that tries to treat citizens like participants rather than like disconnected observers or victims."

Since 1991, Phillips' paper, the fastest growing daily in the Northwest and one of the fastest growing in the country, has been a civic journalism leader in the Puget Sound area. In October of that year, the paper weighed in on a community controversy over the possible development of a 600-acre forest. Phillips wrote an editorial calling for more preservation and a dialog with community leaders began. Ultimately,

"The Sun led Kitsap County through a public process that resulted in a citizen-written open space preservation plan. Phillips and other leaders organized 47 community meetings, attended by about 1,500 citizens, and conducted by 150 volunteers trained as facilitators under The Sun's auspices. The Sun provided background and other workshop materials, published the citizen plan in a 24-page special section, and conducted two telephone polls. County commissioners responded to the proposal by placing a $70 million bond issue on the ballot in September 1992. After the proposal [received a 51 percent yes vote, but] failed to win the 60 percent majority required for bond issues, the volunteers regrouped and chartered a not-for-profit advocacy organization to keep open space on the public agenda. Properties and strategies identified in the plan are being included in the county's new comprehensive plan."14

This land-use coverage had its critics, as do many of the projects generated by the civic journalism movement. Some of the criticism came from Phillips himself. Journalists have sometimes found civic journalism problematic because, according to Phillips,

"It challenges the morality of conventional journalism. Journalists have adopted an attitude that somehow we have a divine right to criticize or that our constitutional protection has given us a constitutional right to criticize and that has nothing to do with it. It has everything to do with our relationship to our communities. If you went out on the streets of Bremerton and asked them about a newspaper's right to criticize, they would say, 'That's all right for them to do if they're also being helpful.' And we weren't, as an industry, being helpful to the democratic process. One of the principal gaps civic journalism seems to be bridging is the one between the medium and its users. Over the years, the paternalistic and then adversarial nature of journalism has created media in which only the advertisers were having an interactive relationship with the subscribers/viewers/listeners."

There's a reason The Sunin Kitsap County is the only newspaper in the Puget Sound Region to be increasing circulation. The reason may well be that citizens have something to say in it, about it, and through it. Editor Phillips had this to say,

"A lot of us in civic journalism are almost afraid to say, 'This has got to be good for business.' But in fact, it's got to be good for business. We don't want it to be dismissed as a marketing technique. It's not. That's not why we're doing it. We're the fastest growing newspaper in the country right now — if you discount some anomalies — and the fourth fastest if you don't. And civic journalism is part of that because we're far more connected with the community. And the only kind of news that's unique to newspapers now is local news."

Primarily local, a feature that is unique to civic journalism is its experiments with nontraditional partnerships. The dominant journalism culture allows media to form journalistic partnerships with what publisher Mike Phillips refers to as "historically First Amendment-friendly institutions" like libraries and universities. The Sun, which he calls "one of the most radical of the newspapers experimenting with public [civic] journalism," has, as part of its strategy for getting closer to the community, partnered with "non-journalistic entities like the board of realtors, the League of Women Voters, environmental groups and on and on."

For many journalists and traditional media, civic journalism presents much the same ethical dilemma as that of individual journalists participating in community organizations or on not-for-profit boards. It gives them problems because journalism's culture is adversarial, not collaborative. It gives them such problems that Phillips proposed guidelines for managing these partnerships, posting them in a private Internet mail group called "the Civic Gang" at the Democratic Practices Network on the University of Wisconsin server:

• The partnership must be a balanced group
• Everything has to be open to the public including initial meetings
• No fact will be withheld or shaded or lied about just because we're concerned about public reaction
• We ask that our partners respect basic journalistic values (such as the promise above)
• The group is entitled to ask the journalists what they want us to respect.

It takes this kind of consideration and internal and external conversation to do what Professor Jay Rosen is encouraging journalists to do — change the culture of journalism. It starts with one project, grows to one paper, and can result in the kind of social capital that can revitalize a city and rejuvenate the media that serve it.

Good News/Good Deeds asked Phillips if civic journalism had changed his paper. He responded,

"When we first started doing civic journalism projects, they didn't change the paper because they were special projects and projects don't change newspapers. What changes newspapers is changing the daily habits of the people who put the newspaper out."

Six years after the initial experiment, after doing a "rough and ready civic content analysis" of The Sun, Phillips found,

"We were doing civic journalism in some parts of the newspaper almost unintentionally. And that means we're starting to change. Nowadays if we publish a story, as we did today, about who might or might not be running for school board and which positions are open, we also run something that encourages people to participate or helps people participate. Today's case was a little story about things you might want to consider before you run for the school board: skills you should bring to this job and some questions you might ask yourself before you decide if it's right or wrong for you.

We wouldn't have done that story five years ago. It's a case of changing the frame through which you view a story. If we view school board elections through a traditional political frame, then all we talk about is the political process. If we view it from a citizen's frame, then we ask, 'Well, what do people need to know before they decide if running for the school board is right for [them]?'"

So, changing a newsroom begins by changing the frames through which reporters look at any story. And at The Sun, reporters have a significant part in changing that frame. In the summer of 1997, they formed a task force to look at schools through the citizen's frame. They held focus groups to find out what people identify as they key issues. In this case, there was surprisingly strong interest in what was perceived s a values curriculum.

Doing civic journalism is becoming a pattern at The Sun, and elsewhere: Once the reporters discern what's on people's minds, they begin to do their research in more traditional reporting style. After that, The Sun will hold a public forum on the subject citizens identified. So, first a package of stories on schools will appear in the paper. Then, in a couple of days, the public forum will be held. After that, the reports that come out of the forum will appear in the paper. "Then," according to Phillips, "the letters to the editor will begin coming in and we will have started a conversation that we'll try to sustain, for as long as we can, on that topic." He continued,

"Meanwhile, we'll be introducing a new subject the next week or a couple of weeks later and I'm not sure this will have an end. It will change and move off in different directions but it will become, I hope, a thread of newspaper-sponsored community conversations about schools that gets parents together with parents and parents together with schools and bridges a lot of the gaps."