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Public journalism's talking cure

An analysis of the movement's ‘problem’ and ‘solution’ narratives

Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania, 3620 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, USA. lwoodstock{at}asc.upenn.edu

The notion that news is a form of storytelling has received sustained attention by communication scholars. Public journalism's narratives position the movement as a challenge to traditional journalism and the public lethargy it is said to spawn. This article considers public journalism's narratives and their consequences on the theory and practice of this journalistic movement. Evidence is drawn from journalistic and academic advocates of public journalism and from The Philadelphia Inquirercoverage of its Citizen Voices project. It is claimed that public journalism's narratives, which define conversation as a conclusive result, fail to adequately address the mandate of reinvigorating the public sphere. Additionally, the article argues that when examined through the prism of narrative theory, public journalism does not mark a revolution in journalism. In fact, traditional and public journalisms adopt similar narrative strategies to effect essentially the same ends: placing the power of telling society's stories in the hands of journalists.

Key Words: civic journalism • news narrative • public journalism

Journalism, Vol. 3, No. 1, 37-55 (2002)
DOI: 10.1177/146488490200300101


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