This article is an analysis of news reports and opinion pieces written about the news consortium that covered the 1996 senatorial and state governor races in North Carolina. The author argues that although critics and supporters of the consortium disagreed about whether it resulted in good or bad journalism, they agreed on a more fundamental understanding as to how a free press works in a modern democracy. The analysis suggests that an overreliance on traditional models of both journalism and communication more generally caused confusion in the North Carolina case among public journalism's defenders. If the assumptions of communication inherent in these models remain unexamined, the changes that public journalism reforms produce within the American journalistic community will probably be quite limited.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Ahearn, Lorraine
. 1996. News & Record previews political series Sunday. News & Record (Greensboro, NC), 17February, A1.
2.
Anderson, Charles
. 1996. Accuracy and fair play: Your voice served its purpose. Sunday Star-News (Wilmington, NC), 20October, E7.
3.
Anderson, Rob
, Robert Dardenne, and George M. Killenberg. 1997. The American newspaper as the public conversational commons. In Mixed news: The public/civic/communitarian journalism debate, edited by Jay Black, 96-115. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
4.
Bare, John
. 1992. Case studies—Wichita and Charlotte: The leap of a passive press to activism. Media Studies Journal6 (4): 149-160.
5.
Batten, James K.
1993. Newspapers and communities. In Community connectedness: Passwords for public journalism, by Jay Rosen, 13-16. St. Petersburg, FL: Twentieth Century Press.
6.
Bennet, James
. 1996. North Carolina media try to lead politicians to issues. The New York Times, 23September, A1, A23.
7.
Bennett, W. Lance
, Lynne A. Gressett, and William Haltom. 1985. Repairing the news: A case study of the news paradigm. Journal of Communication35:50-68.
8.
Berger, Peter
, and Thomas Luckmann. 1966. The social construction of reality: A treatise in the sociology of knowledge. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.
9.
Berkowitz, Dan
. 1997. Overview: Why a “social meaning of news” perspective?—A framework for thinking about news. In Social meanings of news: A text-reader, edited by Daniel Berkowitz, xi-xiv. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
10.
Bruner, Jerome
. 1990. Acts of meaning. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
11.
Buckner, Jennie
. 1996a. Assault on “public journalism.”The Washington Post, 31October, A19.
12.
Buckner, Jennie
. 1996b. Without fear or favor to any institution. Charlotte Observer, 26October, A23.
13.
Buckner, Jennie
. 1997a. Public journalism—Giving voters a voice. Media Studies Journal11(1): 65-68.
14.
Buckner, Jennie
. 1997b. Response to Michael Gartner. Media Studies Journal11 (1): 74.
15.
Carey, James
. 1987. The press and public discourse. The Center Magazine, 20 (2): 4-16.
16.
Carey, James
. 1988. Communication as culture: Essays on media and society. London: Unwin Hyman.
17.
Case, Tony
. 1994. Public journalism denounced. Editor and Publisher127 (46): 14, 15.
18.
Charity, Arthur
. 1995. Doing public journalism. New York: Guilford Press.
19.
Clark, Chuck
. 1997. In favor of civic journalism. The Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics2 (3): 118-124.
20.
Coleman, Renita
. 1997. The intellectual antecedents of public journalism. Journal of Communication Inquiry21 (1): 60-76.
21.
Dahlgren, Peter
. 1992. Introduction. In Journalism and popular culture, edited by Peter Dahlgren and Colin Sparks, 1-23. London: Sage.
22.
Dionne, E. J. Jr.
1991. Why Americans hate politics. New York: Simon & Schuster.
23.
Dubuisson, David
. 1996. Can this election be made more interesting? News people have some reason to be worried. News & Record (Greensboro, NC), 20October, F2.
24.
Eason, David L.1986. On journalistic authority: The Janet Cooke scandal. Critical Studies in Mass Communication3:429-447.
25.
Effron, Seth
. 1997. The North Carolina experiment. Columbia Journalism Review, January-February, 12-14.
26.
Fish, Stanley
. 1980. Is there a text in this class? The authority of interpretive communities. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
27.
Fouhy, Ed.1994. The dawn of public journalism. National Civic Review83:259-266.
28.
Fowler, Roger
. 1991. Language in the news: Discourse and ideology in the press. London: Routledge.
29.
Frankel, Max
. 1995. Fix-it journalism. The New York Times Magazine, 21May, 28, 30.
30.
Gartner, Michael
. 1997. Response to Jennie Buckner. Media Studies Journal11 (1): 75.
31.
Geary, Bob
. 1996. Your voice, your vote, our loss. The Independent Weekly (Durham, NC), 13November, 17.
32.
Gerbner, George
. 1973. Cultural indicators: The third voice. In Communications technology and social policy: Understanding the new “cultural revolution,” edited by George Gerbner, Larry Gross, and William H. Melody, 555-573. New York: Wiley.
33.
Glasser, Theodore L.
, and Stephanie Craft. 1998. Public journalism and democratic ideals. In Media, ritual and identity, edited by James Curran and Tamar Liebes, 203-218. London: Routledge.
34.
Greenberg, Paul
. 1996. Public journalism harms newspapers' credibility. The Post and Courier (Charleston, SC), 18November, A9.
35.
Gyllenhaal, Andres
. 1996. Voters find issues a key part of mix. The News and Observer (Raleigh, NC), 20October, A21.
36.
Hardt, Hanno
. 1997. The quest for public journalism: Review essay. Journal of Communication47 (3): 102-109.
37.
Hawkins, Bill
. 1996. Endorsements policy helps protect distinctions between news, opinion. The Herald-Sun (Durham, NC), 3November, A29.
38.
Hawpe, David
. 1996. When listening becomes limiting. The Courier-Journal (Louisville, KY), 6October, D3.
39.
Hoyt, Mike
. 1995. Are you now or have you ever been a civic journalist?Columbia Journalism Review34 (3): 27-33.
40.
Jackson, William E. Jr.1997. Save democracy from civic journalism: North Carolina's odd experiment. The Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics2 (3): 102-117
41.
Kelly, Michael
. 1996. Media culpa. The New Yorker, 4November, 45-49.
42.
Krieger, Elliot
, and Jody McPhillips. 1996. Power to the people: Should the media play an active role in the political process?The Providence Journal-Bulletin, 3November, D1.
43.
Krippendorff, Klaus
. 1993. Major metaphors of communication and some constructivist reflections on their use. Cybernetics and Human Knowing2 (1): 3-25.
44.
Martin, Jurek
. 1996. Helms dies hard in North Carolina: Ageing political streetfighter looks odds on to win a fifth term in the US Senate. Financial Times, 1November, 4.
45.
Media-driven democracy on trial
. 1996. Financial Times, 11November, 13.
46.
Merritt, Davis
. 1995. Public journalism and public life: Why telling the news is not enough. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
47.
Merritt, Davis
. 1996. Missing the point. American Journalism Review18 (6): 29-31.
48.
Morning Star will participate in election consortium
. 1995. Wilmington Star-News (Wilmington, NC), 27December, A1.
49.
Morrill, Jim
, and Rob Christensen. 1996. Citizens seek answers, not rhetoric, from politicians. The News and Observer (Raleigh, NC), 18February, A1.
50.
Parisi, Peter
. 1997. Toward a “philosophy of framing”: News narratives for public journalism. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly74:673-686.
51.
Peters, John Durham
. 1995. Historical tensions in the concept of public opinion. In Public opinion and the communication of consent, edited by Theodore Glasser and Charles T. Salmon, 3-32. New York: Guilford Press.
52.
Pope, Larry
. 1995. Your voice coalition will inform '96 voters. Asheville Citizen-Times (Asheville, NC), 30December, A4.
53.
Press, media involve citizens in campaign coverage issues
. 1995. Asheville Citizen-Times (Asheville, NC), 27December, B1.
54.
Putnam, Robert D.1995. Bowling alone: America's declining social capital. Journal of Democracy6 (1): 65-78.
55.
Ready, Tinker
. 1996. Media's election project draws mixed reaction: But a poll suggests voters benefited. The News and Observer (Raleigh, NC), 9December, A1.
56.
Reese, Stephen D.1990. The news paradigm and the ideology of objectivity. Critical Studies in Mass Communication7:390-409.
57.
Riceour, Paul
. 1976. Interpretation theory: Discourse and the surplus of meaning. Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press.
58.
Rosen, Jay
. 1993. Community connectedness: Passwords for public journalism. St. Petersburg, FL: Twentieth Century Press.
59.
Rosen, Jay
. 1994. Making things more public: On the political responsibility of the media intellectual. Critical Studies in Mass Communication11:363-388.
60.
Rosen, Jay
. 1996. Getting the connections right: Public journalism and the troubles in the press. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
61.
Rosen, Jay
. 1997. In quest of journalism. Index on Censorship26 (2): 81-88.
62.
Schaffer, Jan
. 1997. The best or worst? Civic journalism study. The Quill85 (4): 25-28.
63.
Shepard, Alicia C.1994. The gospel of public journalism. American Journalism Review16 (7): 28-34.
64.
Soloski, John
. 1997. News reporting and professionalism: Some constraints on the reporting of news. In Social meanings of news: A text-reader, edited by Daniel Berkowitz, 138-154. Thousand Oaks, CA:Sage.
65.
Tuchman, Gaye
. 1978. Making news: A study in the construction of reality. New York: Free Press.
66.
van Dijk, Teun
. 1988. News analysis: Case studies of international and national news and the press. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
67.
Weaver, David H.
, and G. Cleveland Wilhoit. 1996. The American journalist in the 1990s: U.S. news people at the end of an era. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
68.
Wilkie, Curtis
. 1996. Public journalism plays out in N.C. The Boston Globe, 30October, A1, A23.
69.
Yack, Patrick
. 1996. Readers need a voice, too. News & Record (Greensboro, NC), 16October, F3.
70.
Yardley, Jonathan
. 1996. Public journalism: Bad news. The Washington Post, 30September, C2.
71.
Zelizer, Barbie
. 1992. CNN, the Gulf War, and journalistic practice. Journal of Communication42 (1): 66-81.
72.
Zelizer, Barbie
. 1993. Journalists as interpretive communities. Critical Studies in Mass Communication10:219-237.
