What Are Journalists For? by Jay Rosen, Yale University Press

by Jay Rosen

New York University communications professor Jay Rosen asks a question in his title What Are Journalists For? and devotes the book to arguing that the answer ought to be different from what it is today. Journalism, he says, should not simply report the news and move on to another story; rather, it should become "democracy's cultivator, as well as its chronicler." Rosen advocates "public journalism," a disorganized movement among newspaper editors and reporters around the United States striving to connect with their readers in new and untried ways (see, for example, Breaking the News, by former U.S. News & World Report editor James Fallows). He describes, for instance, how the Virginian-Pilot, a newspaper in Norfolk, Virginia, based its election reporting one fall on issues raised by ordinary residents in a series of focus groups, and then published a voting guide. Rosen provides plenty of examples of other newspapers doing similar things, and these case studies are one of the book's strengths. Although several powerful news organizations such as The New York Times have criticized public journalism for abandoning the traditional goal of objectivity, Rosen believes his movement may help newspapers during a time of decreasing readership--and also advance the common good. Print journalists wondering whether their profession will survive long into the 21st century--as well as anybody interested in the future of the media--will want to grapple with Rosen's ideas, whether they ultimately accept or reject them. --John J. Miller

Genres: Journalism, Nonfiction

ebook

First published November 10, 1999

Reviews

[H R Venkatesh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Took me a little more than 3 years to chew through this work of journalistic philosophy. This is important because without a good working philosophy, no work can focus on the immediate and the pragmatic.

This book was published in 1999 and it came before the search/social/subscription waves on the internet. But it holds up, simply because it asks a very foundational question about 'public interest journalism'.