Making Journalism More Public

Abstract

The problem of "the public" is at issue in both journalism and communication studies. This chapter discusses some of the ways in which journalism might become "more public," meaning more supportive of a public sphere of discussion and debate. It suggests that a "more public" approach to the study and criticism of the press. For in James W. Carey's view, the real problem of journalism is that the term which grounds it—the public—has been dissolved, dissolved in part by journalism. Journalism only makes sense in relation to the public and public life. The chapter describes newspaper's experiment in promoting public discussion on the local level. Jack Swift gained an enlarged sense of journalism's public functions in part through his contact with the Kettering Foundation and its emphasis on participatory politics. The Ledger-Enquirer proceeds as if it is possible for journalism to produce the public sphere on which its own public functions depend, and the results are favourable to public freedom.

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