Abstract
Journalism is important to public life: it helps to define public life and mediate debate about it through all its forms, from tabloid press to high-quality broadsheets, and news and current affairs programs. And while many scholars debate the vagaries of which theoretical approach best explains the media, the Public Journalism movement in the United States and Australia is an example of how theory can impact on the practice of journalism. Merritt (1996) describes Public Journalism as an ‘intellectual journey’. This paper develops that notion and reflects on how this kind of innovation can be an exemplar to media theorists and practitioners, as well as on how their respective traditions and critiques can evolve an new industry paradigm, designed to bring together the key stakeholders in public policy formulation: the media, political organisations and a range of community groups.
The paper reviews Public Journalism as a movement from its origins in the late 1980s in the United States, refers to American examples of Public Journalism and details how readers, audiences, editors, community groups and political organisations have reacted to this news approach to doing journalism.
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