PBS: Think Tank: Transcript for "Is Public Journalism, Journalism?"

« Back to Is Public Journalism, Journalism? main page

Transcript for:

Is Public Journalism, Journalism?

ANNOUNCER: 'Think Tank' is made possible by Amgen, recipient of the PresidentialNational Medal of Technology. Amgen, helping cancer patients through cellularand molecular biology, improving lives today and bringing hope for tomorrow.

Additional funding is provided by the John M. Olin Foundation and the Lynde andHarry Bradley Foundation.

MR. WATTENBERG: Hello, I'm Ben Wattenberg. In recent years, newspapers haveprided themselves on the Joe Friday school of journalism 'Just the facts,ma'am.' But something new is now said to be on the scene. It goes by differentnames, like public journalism, civic participation, community journalism,conclusive journalism. No matter what you call it, this journalism sets out togo beyond just the facts and tries to shape the agenda. Question: Is this new? Is this a liberal trick?

Joining us sort through the conflict and consensus are: Jane Eisner, editorialpage editor of 'The Philadelphia Inquirer,' which recently won the Gold Medalfrom the National Association of Opinion Page Editors; Steve Cuozzo, executiveeditor of 'The New York Post' and author of 'It's Alive: How America's OldestNewspaper Cheated Death and Why It Matters'; James Fishkin, chairman of thedepartment of government at the University of Texas and author of 'The Voice ofthe People'; and Jodie Allen, Washington editor of the online magazine 'Slate'and former editor of the Outlook section at 'The Washington Post.'

The topic before this house: Is public journalism journalism? 'The PhiladelphiaInquirer's' new editorial policies reflect the goals of public journalism. In acontroversial series, two 'Inquirer' reporters critiqued U.S. economic policy. The title of the series explains its thrust: 'America: Who Stole the Dream?' Theauthors expressed strong and strongly disputed opinions in the news section onpage 1. They proposed, among other things, higher tariffs, immigrationrestrictions and raising taxes on the wealthy.

Other aspects of public journalism include a heavier reliance on publicparticipation through focus groups, reader polls, reader editorials,newspapersponsored civic groups and candidate forums. It all sounds good, butcritics say voters end up spoonfed with the views of the establishment media.

For example, in North Carolina, led by 'The Charlotte Observer,' the major mediaused polls and focus groups in an attempt to shape the agenda and then drive thecoverage of the Senate campaign. Senator Jesse Helms refused to play along,saying he should be allowed to run on his record, for good or for ill.

Jane Eisner, public journalism is a terribly amorphous phrase. What are wetalking about?

MS. EISNER: Well, it is very amorphous and I think that's one of the problemswith it. So I can only answer what it means to me as an editorial page editor.

MR. WATTENBERG: Okay.

MS. EISNER: It's really very simple. I think it just means, from my point ofview, involving readers much more on the pages of my editorial pages, whetherthat's in editorials, op ed pieces or letters. And to do that, I think you reallyhave to reach out to folks who would not ordinarily write to us. You know, noteverybody has a press agent or a fax machine and can send perfectly structured,800word op ed pieces to major newspapers. And it's to those people, whetherthey're younger or disenfranchised or just don't believe that we're interested inwhat they think, those are the folks that we are reaching out to.

MR. WATTENBERG: Professor James Fishkin, what is it all about?

MR. FISHKIN: Public journalism? Well, I'm a social scientist, I'm not ajournalist. But I've gotten involved in a lot of projects that people termpublic journalism, so I guess I'm an advocate of it, and I discuss it in my book.

Public journalism, I think, means journalistic institutions take someresponsibility for creating a public. By a public, I mean citizens who can talkto each other about the issues, are informed about the issues, and whose voice isfacilitated in some way. So it also means airing the people's agenda on theissues, not just horse race of the campaign, but the issues that people reallywant to hear about, not just tabloid journalism, who's sleeping with whom orwhatever, but issues that actually affect people's lives, as ordinary peopleconstrue that.

Now, it's very tricky to pull off, and my interest in this is in something calleddeliberative polling, which represents what the public would think about theissues if they became engaged.

MR. WATTENBERG: Which you did on PBS earlier this year.

MR. FISHKIN: Yes, yes. I've now been involved in eight deliberative polls, somenational, on PBS with the presidential candidates, some in other countries.

MR. WATTENBERG: All right, we'll come back to that in just a minute. JodieAllen, what do you think of this stuff?

MS. ALLEN: Well, I think it's being oversold. I think that what's good in itisn't new and what's new in it isn't necessarily good. Obviously, it's good fora newspaper to be in touch with the people that it's serving, to go out and dogood reporting on what's really concerning them both locally, but alsonationally, and that's a danger when we simply get too much handholding of don'tyou feel bad today.

And I worry so that I don't think that that is new. If you're a good newspaper,you're out there reaching into your community, seeing what's going on, followingit. But what worries me is that you do see this move in the news pages, not onthe editorial pages, but in the case of 'The Philadelphia Inquirer,' right on thenews pages, where crusades are being run pretending to be news, obviously withstrong and selective choices of the facts, or in some cases, completely polldriven and cutting the politicians out of the political process and insteadturning the control over to the pollsters.

MR. WATTENBERG: Steve, he mentioned the magic word 'tabloid,' and he did not sayin it in a friendly way. You are the executive editor of the world's greatesttabloid.

MR. CUOZZO: And champion of tabloid values.

MR. WATTENBERG: Right.

MR. CUOZZO: Which I define in a somewhat different way from traditionaldefinitions. Tabloid journalism is journalism driven by a focused concentrationon individuals as distinct from the workings of institutions. So even if wecover institutions, such as government or the Federal Reserve, we tend to do sofrom the point of with the perspective that they're run by individual men andwomen.

But my sense of public journalism is this, that in New York City, a verydifferent and unique market, we practice a very different form of publicjournalism altogether, which consists in having three daily newspapers, at leastfive television stations broadcast, plus cable channels, and maybe a half dozenodd weekly magazines, monthly magazines. And all of us, so to speak, wake upevery morning and scream our brains out about everything, each from a differentperspective and a different ideological each pursuing, more or less blatantly, adifferent ideological agenda.

Out of that cacophony of voices emerges something resembling truth or reality.

MR. WATTENBERG: What is all this whole thing that's going on? I mean, you haveall these bright young journalism majors in school and bright young journaliststalking about this wonderful new thing and raising high this standard.

MS. EISNER: Well, I think there's another element to it, and it relates to whatJim said, which is that I think there are many of us who do feel that we have aresponsibility to create a safe space for a deliberative dialogue, that it ispart of our roles to do that. I'll give you one example.

MR. WATTENBERG: A safe space for a deliberative dialogue. bMS. EISNER: Mmhmm.It's not talk radio, it's not people yelling at each other, but it's not alsowhat traditional op ed pages have been like.

For example, our newspaper will do what it's always done, which is endorsecandidates in this election cycle, and we will interview the candidates andresearch them and talk to folks about them and dissect their records. But insome cases, we're also going out and meeting with voters from those districts.

MR. WATTENBERG: Why isn't what 'The New York Post' does community journalism,public

journalism?

MS. EISNER: I'm really not very hung up on these labels. I don't find them verysatisfactory at all. You know, I just think it's good journalism with a slightlybroader framework than what we've had in the past.

MS. ALLEN: But I think there's a big difference between what Jane does on hereditorial page, where I think we'd all agree that's the place where opinionsshould be, and the main thrust of the new, quote, unquote, 'public journalism,'which interestingly enough, the 'American Journalism Review' says is not sopopular among young reporters, but among older publishers looking for ways tomake money.

But it is quite a different thing for front pages to go out and have polls doneor to go out, as in one case, and tell all their reporters to talk to fourpeople, which seemed to be a rather small sample, and come back and decide, as isthe case in North Carolina right now, what the total range of issues that aregoing to be covered will be, not just in one paper, but in several papers andseveral television stations, with the result that the actual candidates runningdown there, candidates like Harvey Gantt, are having no coverage at all, areunable to get their message out. It is a real taking away of the politicalprocess from politicians, who whatever their faults, their fault is not usuallythat they're not polldriven enough, but that they're too polldriven.

MR. FISHKIN: Most advocates of public journalism I know don't say that say thatyou have to cover the campaign, but you cover it in a different way and from adifferent angle and you bring in the issues that touch people's lives as well asthe horse race, which dominates everything. I mean, we have democracy that's notreally functioning all that well. I speak as a political scientist. If you lookat the turnout, if you look at the knowledge that citizens have about thecampaign, I mean 40 percent don't know that Jack Kemp is Bob Dole's running mate,and a quarter don't know the vice president is Clinton's running mate. This wasa Washington PostKaiser study recently.

So we've got a public that is just barely attentive that reacts to a vagueimpression of sound bites and headlines. And if your notion of public journalismis everybody shouting at each other, it's hard for people to think wheneverybody's shouting.

MR. WATTENBERG: How are you going to tell them to think with a public opinionpoll?

MR. FISHKIN: Ah. Well, I don't I'm not an I'm a critic of conventional publicopinion polls. I have a new method which I call deliberative polling. Do youwant me to say a word about that?

MR. WATTENBERG: About one or several. (Laughter.)

MR. FISHKIN: The idea of deliberative polling is to go beyond conventionalpublic opinion polling because if you just do conventional polling to advisenewspapers or whatever, you may well just reflect back the public's vagueimpression of what's already being covered.

But there is another question. What would the people think if they actually hadan opportunity to overcome what social scientists have called rational ignorance? I mean, there's a reason the public's turned off. If I've got one vote inmillions, why should I pay a lot of attention to the complexities of publicpolicy, because I won't have much effect. But if we can create a social contextwhere people actually can get engaged in the issues, where they think their voicematters, they pay attention. They do the hard work of listening to competing

MR. WATTENBERG: And you brought together 500 people as a fine sample and putthem to school, basically, for a few days, learning these issues.

MR. FISHKIN: Well, we brought put the whole country in one room underconditions where they could think through the issues and ask their questions ofcompeting experts and competing politicians, including the vice president, overseveral days of discussion. And in preparation for that, they started listeningto the media, reading up on the issues, talking to friends and family, hearingcompeting points of view. And we had dramatic changes of opinion about theirview of the priorities.

MR. CUOZZO: Forgive my saying so, but the elitism inherent in that statementtakes my breath away. Its underlying assumption seems to be that the public isincapable of making up its own mind or listening or applying any criticalthinking to issues in an environment in which there are many voices being heard.

It strikes me that in most of the markets where I'm not a great believer inpolls or in focus groups; I'm a believer in the market. And in most of theplaces in America where public journalism has taken hold, I notice that, by andlarge, they tend overwhelmingly to be in cities that are monopoly newspapermarkets, small cities, mediumsized cities, with only a single newspaper which is tends to be march in lock step with the advertising community.

In larger cities, including Philadelphia and Boston, it invariably tends to bethe paper, in the case of 'The Inquirer' or 'The Globe' in Boston, the paper thatis utterly dominant in that market. And it seems to me that in a city with adiversity of media voices, as in New York, or in the country as a whole, whichhas a diversity of media voices, it's unthinkable that public journalism, as Iunderstand you folks, drawing in effect, drawing yourself in with the voters toinfluence the political agenda, could really take place.

Who determines what the issues are that matter to voters other than the votersthemselves? Do they need to be guided and told from on high?

MR. FISHKIN: The idea is first, the assumption is not that people areincapable; rather, they're not effectively motivated. In fact, we havediscovered that they are very capable of assessing issues if you just give them acontext where they can talk to other people and where they have some reason topay attention and become engaged.

MS. EISNER: I take great issue about this being elitist. First of all, I'm justdoing what I'm doing on my pages, and that is basically good reporting. And it'sthe kind of reporting that an editorial page editor hasn't done in the past on'The Philadelphia Inquirer.' I spend a whole lot less time at cocktail partieswith the elite in the Philadelphia region and more time just being in gatheringsand listening to ordinary folks. And it's

MR. WATTENBERG: And you run fewer syndicated columns.

MS. EISNER: No, that's not true.

MR. WATTENBERG: Not true?

MS. ALLEN: The editorial pages are turning to reporting because the reportingpages are turning to editorializing. But I think I much prefer Steve's modelwhere we let all the flowers bloom, but the fact is that we're getting fewer andfewer (inaudible). It seems to me then that we ought to demand more objectivityof a newspaper, less cheerleading, less leading of crusades when it's only onethan when there are five. And so I think the whole trend runs in the wrong way.

MR. WATTENBERG: There was a poll run recently that asked about the ideologicalleanings of the Washington press corps and their editors. It was overwhelmingly,beyond anybody's prior belief, that they were far more liberal than the public asa whole.

If the public journalism advocates are saying, boy, we ought to get more of us inthe story and explain to people what's wrong, isn't that automatically going tocome out even more as a trick of liberals to do more of what they've beencriticized for?

MR. FISHKIN: No, it's to get the people into the story, not the pundits. Notthe pundits. And it's to facilitate the people coming to their own conclusionsand getting the people's agenda aired in the newspaper so that people can connectwith the stories.

MR. WATTENBERG: So you're going to have 10 young journalists, 9 of whom areliberals, going out and finding that the people really have a conservativeagenda. Is that what we're saying?

MR. FISHKIN: No, no. No, that's why I've devised this elaborate process oframbling sampling of the people and of everything being transparent in terms ofeverything that is given to

MR. WATTENBERG: No, I understand that, but I'm talking about this generalconcept, which we still have not appropriately defined, by the way, of

MS. EISNER: But it can't be defined. I mean, every newspaper is doing things intheir own way, and I think that's one of the problems with public journalism. And I've written about this. I think the folks who are sort of leading thismovement haven't been discerning enough. I don't think that they've said thatthere are some things newspapers ought not to do. And I don't think that it'sour role to shape the agenda except on the editorial pages. I do think it's ourrole to listen, especially to the folks that we don't ordinarily listen to.

MR. CUOZZO: But it seems to me that if editors and publishers want to invest inthe civic process of interaction between elected officials and the voters on theother hand, let them run for mayor, let them run for councilman, and let them,you know, take those steps that mean true investment in the system.

MR. FISHKIN: I think newspapers and the press in general, the media, should beconcerned with getting people discussing the issues in an informed way.

You know, we had a big debate among presidential candidates. The real future ofdemocracy rests not with the debate among candidates, but with the debate amongthe people. Can we facilitate a debate among the people? Then those who want tovote can decide to vote, but at least if they vote, they'll be informed.

But it's a difficult process to figure out how can we actually get them engagedenough so that they'll even pay attention?

MR. WATTENBERG: Jodie, what is seeking to be born here?

MS. ALLEN: Well, it seems to be that the big case behind it is a desire to sellmore newspapers. Now, that is not a new concern on the part of newspaperpublishers.

MR. WATTENBERG: Not to become part of the process and purvey their particularideological, sort of goody twoshoes establishment sort of a thing my words?

MS. ALLEN: Well, some of that, too. But I think as you look, and when you lookespecially at a chain like KnightRidder, which has been a leader in the publicjournalism idea, they are concerned, as are all publishers, about the fact thatnewspaper sales have not been growing and in some cities have been declining. And they're looking at all the competition they're getting from television andfrom the Internet, and so on, and they want to boost sales.

And they say, well, the way to boost sales is to make the paper more relevant topeople's concerns. But that, you know, it's a natural impulse, but it's adangerous one. One should depart from the notion of our job, like it or not, isto present the news and the facts as fairly as we can, realizing we don't alwaysdo it right.

We can present it in a more interesting way, and I think this has been a goodmove. But to then slavishly turn it into we'll go out and do a poll and letpeople tell us what we already knew and remember, everybody knows that pollstersdecide, A, what questions to ask, and B, how to ask them, and that the answersthey get not in Jim's kind of poll, but that's not what we're talking about.

MR. WATTENBERG: And moreover, when politicians follow polls, we say, oh, my God,they're doing a terrible thing.

MS. ALLEN: Oh, isn't it terrible? So now here's the newspaper

MR. WATTENBERG: And then when newspapers follow polls, we say isn't thatwonderful?

MS. ALLEN: Yes. Why would that be?

MS. EISNER: I think it I mean I'm not going to defend that. We don't do thatand I never would, but I do think you have to be careful here because you'retalking about a whole lot of newspapers doing a whole lot of different things,and I think it's not fair to brandish them all with one kind of brush.

I mean, I agree with you, Jodie. We have never done pollings here. I agree withyou, Steve. We haven't done voter registration drives; another newspaper inPhiladelphia did. I would find that to be a to compromise our independencebecause, in fact, the news side of 'The Philadelphia Inquirer' did a terrific joba few years ago of uncovering a vote fraud scandal that was perpetuated by thevery people who were trying to get people to sign up for votes. So I couldn't dothat.

MR. CUOZZO: That's journalism.

MS. EISNER: I mean, I just feel like that would be really out of bounds.

MR. CUOZZO: I feel that what you're doing on 'The Inquirer' isn't publicjournalism, as you've defined it, Jim, notwithstanding that there is a certainfuzziness about the definition.

I'd make one more point. Jodie, you mentioned, you know, that publishers arepromoting or tolerating public journalism in their pages with the hope of sellingmore papers. And my guess is that they're really doing it to sell moreadvertising. I don't believe that anybody has any great hope of turning on ayounger generation that doesn't have the newspaper habit to going out and buyingnewspapers in great numbers.

I think nothing becomes a monopoly newspaper more in its market, or the dominantnewspaper in its market when there is one clearly dominant, than an aura ofobjectivity and civic responsibility. And frankly, the kind of public journalismthat promotes a sort of overall, fuzzily defined, good government agenda let'sget people out and vote, let's look at the issues that really matter to theirlives is bland enough to promote that aura of objectivity and sell moredepartment store ads.

MR. WATTENBERG: You are saying it's a fake populism whereas the tabloid voice isthe real populism.

MR. CUOZZO: I'm not saying that the tabloid voice in itself is the real populistvoice. I say that the multiplicity of voices is the real populist voice.

MR. WATTENBERG: Right.

MR. FISHKIN: Could I introduce an historical note for a second?

MR. WATTENBERG: Yes.

MR. FISHKIN: The public opinion poll was itself launched by newspapers, andnewspapers were attacked for intervening in the political process when they didso. And in fact, most dramatically, even George Gallup's initial launch of thepoll in the 1936 election was financed, in large part, by 'The Washington Post.'

So now, when newspapers conduct polls, they have an effect on the election. Allthese horse race polls have an effect bandwagon effects, momentum effects,certainly in the primary season, and in the general election. Now, somehowthat's now become part of the modus operandi of newspapers, and it's not thoughtthat they're intervening. But they are intervening.

My particular notion is, why not intervene with polls that measure in a morethoughtful way what the public would think. But these other efforts to consultthe public are just efforts they are much less dramatic interventions in thepolitical process than what newspapers are doing all the time.

MS. EISNER: I honestly think we've set up a false dichotomy here, acting as ifthere's objective journalism in some pure form that used to be practiced untilvery recently and this new sort of brand of public journalism, when in fact wealways make judgments and choices in our journalism. We try to do it you know,we are professionals and so we try to do it as fairly as possible. But we arechoosing. We are choosing to describe a political campaign as a battlefield, orwe can choose to describe it as a discussion. And we use those words everysingle day.

MR. WATTENBERG: Is this tendency toward public journalism, whatever it means,impacting on this election this year?

MS. ALLEN: I don't think it's had a very big effect on the presidentialelection. One reason is that people are just not very concerned about anything. What the polls show is that although crime pops up as the highest concern, that'sbecause it gets a 10 percent vote, which is why this year paying attention topolls is especially misleading.

But it is making a difference in some state and local elections, North Carolinabeing one very clear example. And I don't think it's making you know, that it'shaving a good effect. I think it's having a worrisome effect.

MR. WATTENBERG: The paper there is setting the agenda and forcing the candidatesto talk about that or they won't cover them anymore.

MS. ALLEN: They're not even covering the candidates. They're sort of coveringthemselves, and it's just sort of statewide thumbsucking. I really with the TVgoing along with it I think it's a bad thing. It's not democracy as I know it.

And I think there is to pick up on something Jane said, I think she's right thatnewspapers are getting if you look at the long term, they've certainly gottenbetter informed and, in fact, more objective. But that has been their goal. Whenyou now switch the goal and say, no, forget the objectivity, the point is to getin tune with what the people want, you'll see the trend gradually move in theother direction. And I don't think it's healthy.

MR. WATTENBERG: Is it just what the people want or what the reporters want?

MS. ALLEN: Well, see, there's the dangerous thing. We decide, you know, whatquestion to ask the people. I think, you know, once you get that mindset thedanger is always there anyway, and when you feed it, it gets worse.

MR. WATTENBERG: Right, and if you're a suspicious nonliberal, like yourmoderator, I mean, and you look at these polls, saying, well, most of thosereporters are swinging from the liberal side of the plate, is that not groundsfor being suspicious of this?

MS. ALLEN: Oh, yeah.

MR. WATTENBERG: Good. Thank you all. Thank you, Jane Eisner, Jodie Allen,James Fishkin, and Steve Cuozzo.

And thank you. We enjoy hearing from our viewers. You can send your questionsand comments to: New River Media, 1150 17th Street, N.W., Washington, D.C.20036.

For 'Think Tank,' I'm Ben Wattenberg.I

ANNOUNCER: This has been a production of BJW, Incorporated, in association withNew River Media, which are solely responsible for its content.

'Think Tank' is made possible by Amgen, recipient of the Presidential NationalMedal of Technology. Amgen, helping cancer patients through cellular andmolecular biology, improving lives today and bringing hope for tomorrow.

Additional funding is provided by the John M. Olin Foundation and the Lynde andHarry Bradley Foundation.

Back to top

Think Tank is made possible by generous support from the Smith Richardson Foundation, the Bernard and Irene Schwartz Foundation, the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the John M. Olin Foundation, the Donner Canadian Foundation, the Dodge Jones Foundation, and Pfizer, Inc.

©Copyright Think Tank. All rights reserved.

Web development by Bean Creative.