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85 Nat'l Civic Rev. 1 (1996)

handle is hein.journals/natmnr85 and id is 1 raw text is: A9Zno4L Ci vic RE VIEw Publisher and Editor's Note Christopher T Gates & Michael McGrath On January 13, 1996, civic activists in Springfield, Missouri, a city of about 150,000 in the Ozarks, held what they called The Good Community Fair at the student center of the local college. The day's events included a town hall meeting for youth and an exhibi- tion hall for service agencies and nonprofit organiza- tions to provide information about opportunities to volunteer in the community. The sponsors expected perhaps 200 or 300 people to participate. Even the most optimistic community activists were astonished by the actual numbers - 7,000 people participated. By almost any community's standard it was a remarkable turnout, but the fair was not an isolated effort. It was preceded by a month-long special series called The Good Community in the Springfield News-leader, a daily newspaper with a circulation of about 105,000. For two weeks, the newspaper exam- ined community issues such as juvenile crime, job training, and homelessness, and for another two weeks explored potential solutions to problems and provided examples of what was already being done to address them. No one in Springfield doubts the importance of the news series in setting the stage for the astonishing success of the fair. The Good Community' series was an example of a phenomenon known as public jour- nalism, or civic journalism. The name matters lit- tle. It's the substance that counts. In communities all over America, a new spirit of civic mindedness is emerging from the marketplaces of ideas. More and more journalists are providing coverage that helps frame community issues in new ways that facilitate problem solving. The most successful efforts are delib- erative without being dull and informative without being simplistic or biased. There is no formula for public/civic journalism. Each project is as unique as the community it covers. With the increasing visibility of this journalistic movement, many community activists are asking how they can show their support and enthusiasm for this new approach. This question is not easily answered. Thus far the movement has been almost entirely owned by media professionals, and most journalists, even civic journalists, are jealous of their indepen- dence from public opinion and pressure groups. As much as they might like to, community leaders are unlikely to meet with much success by marching down to the local editorial office and demanding a public/civic journalism project. At the National Civic League, however, we are very interested in exploring what some have called the demand side of public journalism, that is, what community builders themselves can do to help jour- nalists make this movement successful. Our interest in this question is the reason why we decided to devote the Winter-Spring 1996 edition of the National Civic Review to the subject of public/civic journalism and what it means for America's communities. We asked Jay Rosen, Director of the Project on Public Life and the Press at New York University, to be the guest editor of this issue, and he generously agreed. Based on our conversations with Professor Rosen, we decided that the issue should accomplish two essential tasks: The first would be to provide an overview of the phenomenon for a readership of civic activists and community builders; the second would be to explore the relatively unexplored terrain of the public's role in public/civic journalism. As Professor Rosen argues in his introductory essay, public jour- nalism is a challenge for citizens and community builders as well as for the press. It requires a whole new way of thinking about the news media. Media bashing is a popular sport these days, but as an organization that advocates collaborative prob- ..........IN ER SP IN 1996... ....... .. .............

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