Journalist Davis "Buzz" Merritt, Senior Editor of the Wichita Eagle, and his colleague, Jay Rosen, a New York University professor, had already been developing their ideas about better integrating journalism into public life for some time when they finally came up with the name "public journalism." But that was probably the easiest challenge they confronted in trying to change journalistic attitudes.

"If Jay and I knew we were starting ‘a movement’ we might have gone about this quite differently," Merritt explains. "We thought that it was possible to engage a profession like journalism in a useful conversation about change. We found out it wasn’t. There is a total unwillingness on the part of many, many people in journalism...They say, ‘We just don’t need to change. I’ve had a number of people say, ‘There’s nothing wrong with journalism today.’ Well, I wonder where these people live."

Merritt will deliver the 1997 Silha Lecture at 12:15 p.m., Tuesday, November 4, at the Humphrey Center’s Cowles Auditorium on the West Bank of the University of Minnesota’s Twin Cities Campus. In his lecture, "Disconnecting from Detachment" Merritt will explore the inextricable connection between journalism and democracy threatened by journalistic detachment. Sponsored by the Silha Center for the Study of Media Ethics and Law, the lecture and reception following are free and open to the public.

In the ensuing debate there has even been disagreement over the concept’s proper name. Some call it public journalism, others use the term "civic journalism."

"I call it public journalism," Merritt says. "I heard it when Jay Rosen and I made it up, and that was about ‘92. We had been talking about this idea for some time and realized that we needed to give it a name, even though we didn’t want to give it a name. But we needed to have something to call it. And because it’s as much about journalism as it is about public life, we decided to call it public journalism."

The senior editor of the Wichita Eagle in Wichita (KA), where he has been for 22 years, Merritt, 61, is also a consultant to Knight-Ridder Newspapers on public/civic journalism. After graduating from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, he began his journalism career at The Charlotte Observer (NC) where he spent 12 years in several reporting and editing positions, before moving to Washington, D.C., as the newspaper’s Washington correspondent. Merritt also worked for The Boca Raton News (FL) and Knight-Ridder newspapers, then joined the Wichita Eagle in 1975. He is also a Morehead Scholar and a member of the Kappa Tau Alpha honorary society.

Included among his numerous awards for local government writing is the 1997 Bart Richards Award for Media Criticism for his article "Public Journalism and Public Life." He is the co-author of Public Journalism: Theory and Practice, now in its second edition, and author of Public Journalism and the Public: Why Telling the Truth Is Not Enough, also in its second edition.

In his Silha lecture on journalistic detachment, Merritt will discuss six arguments for "an ethic of journalistic purposefulness." Those include:

• Detachment is not the fount of journalism’s credibility.
• There’s way too much truth out there.
• An announced bias is just as good as no bias at all.
• Detachment presents impossible human and moral dilemmas.
• Self interest demands a disconnection from detachment.
• Walter Lippman doesn’t work here anymore.

JACK BRESLIN

Bulletin Editor

Davis Merritt (DM): Well, I call it public journalism...And I heard it when Jay Rosen and I made it up and that was about ‘92, I guess. We’d been talking about this idea for some time and realized that we needed to give it a name though we didn’t want to give it a name, but needed to have something to call it because it’s about as much about public life as it is about journalism, we decided to call it public journalism.

SB: How would you define public journalism?

DM: I’m struggling here because I couldn’t give you a two-sentence paragraph definition of journalism itself. Public journalism is journalism that seeks to help public life go better by engaging people in it at a deeper level. You go far beyond that, but that’s the nut of it.

SB: Now, do you see public journalism as blurring the lines between news and business or....

DM: Oh, no!

SB: How so?

DM: Well, how do you see it as blurring? I mean, it doesn’t even arise. I’m a journalist. That question doesn’t even arise.

SB: And so, you would not see any conflicts between trying to increase circulation through this or anything? It’s purely from a civic, public point of view?

DM: Well, all journalism aims at increasing circulation. Investigative journalism has one of its aims increasing circulation, right? Newspapers have to sell in order to be read. But that’s not what drives this. What drives this is the dilemma in public life and the fact that journalism is in trouble and public journalism is our response, to those dilemmas.

SB: How would you say journalism is in trouble?

DM: Take a look at any survey you want. Penetration is going down, circulation on almost every newspaper in the country is going down. Any surveys you see of credibility of journalists, any surveys you see about believability, every measure I’ve ever seen in the last 10 years (shows) journalism has been in sharp decline. I believe that one of the reasons journalism is in trouble in things like credibility and authority is that the way we have told the news in the last 10 or 15 years has relentlessly sent the message to people, "This isn’t about you and your concerns, this is something that is going on that you are helpless to affect, the political system, the things going on in public life are far beyond you, you’re not involved, you’re spectators, if not victims." And you know, that’s not the only way to do good journalism. There are ways to do good journalism that don’t create that gap, and that’s what we’re trying to figure out how to do.

SB: How is public journalism different from good old-fashioned reporting by journalists who have routinely questioned people about issues and their priorities?

DM: Oh, in that sense, it may not be any different, but I don’t know many journalists who have done much listening to people. If they do, it is not reflected in what I see in newspapers...Conflict is the heart of democracy, and we do need to address it, but we write about conflict, for instance, in very narrow ways that exclude most people from the discussion. We write about it using experts and absolutists on quote, the two sides, unquote, instead of also including that vast middle ground where most peoples’ views are held. I mean, have you read E.J. Dionne, Jr.’s book, Why Americans Hate Politics? Well, he makes the point very well about politicians framing issues at the extremes for their own purposes, and that this is the major reason, he says, that Americans are disenchanted and cynical about politics is because they’re not part of the discussion. They don’t hear their views in the discussions, and you know, the question that I have is, where do most of these Americans who hate politics learn most of what they know about politics? From journalists. Because we frame stories in exactly the same way. And it’s that kind of habit of mind that we’re seeking to change. We’re not saying that a lot of the journalism that is going on and has been going on is bad. There’s a lot of quite good journalism that is going on. But it’s insufficient, a lot of it, in that it, rather than engaging people, in the journalism and in the process of public life, it repels them. Well, it doesn’t have to be that way. By changing some of the habits and some of the conventions that we have fallen into such as the way we deal with conflict, I believe that we can do good journalism, continue to do good journalism, but also draw people back into both journalism and public life. I can’t prove this, but again, this is our response to the twin dilemmas of public life and journalism. If somebody’s got a better response, let’s hear it. But this is our response.

SB: Now you say one of the weaknesses of journalism today is that journalists don’t listen. What are some of the other weaknesses?

DM: This kind of adversarial attitude toward all institutions, including the institution of the public. Journalism is in a defensive crouch all the time and there are some reasons for that, and I understand it. I’ve been a working newspaperman for 42 years and I know about all there is to know about it, from that point of view. But, you know, we need a healthy skepticism. My observation is that what used to be healthy skepticism has just turned into just this snarly adversarialism about everything. And I think that’s reflected in our newspapers, and I think that’s one of the habits we have to recognize. Another one is we have to recognize that we frame stories – that’s what journalists do. And that the way we frame stories needs to be a more reflective and thoughtful process, when it can be, than the way we do it now. That’s another habit we need to develop. We need to understand the distinction between objectivity and detachment and understand that journalistic objectivity is a good thing if it exists, and I contend it does, that there is such a thing as journalistic objectivity, having it meaning fairness and balance and accuracy and a clear, cool-headed look at the facts. Journalistic objectivity is an important thing and we must maintain it, but detachment, this sort of "we’re not part of anything notion, uh, doesn’t work well for us." It separates us from our sources, it separates us from our audiences, it separates us from the whole rest of the world. It’s mandatory that journalists care about the implications of their work, and so often when we’re doing stories, the way the frames we choose to do stories are frames that say "you’re not involved here." Well, whether we like it or not, or whether we’re comfortable with it or not, the way we do journalism affects the way public life goes. That is inescapable. What we choose to put in the story, what we choose to leave out, how we choose to emphasize things within a story, all of those things affect what happens. And so, we are kidding ourselves if we say, "Oh, no, we’re just good observers, sitting off here on a mountain and neither responsible nor accountable for the outcome of what we do." That’s an unethical and immoral position. There’s a difference between journalistic objectivity and detachment. Definitely.

SB: If you met a reader who knew nothing about this concept and was complaining to you about the lack of civic pride, or apathy, how would you tell him that this might benefit his community and perhaps get some of that civic pride back?

DM: Well, because, and I don’t know whether civic pride is the right word, I assume that if people are more engaged in civic life, they would have some pride about it. Here’s the thing. Journalism is totally dependent upon democracy working well. And democracy is totally dependent upon journalism. There’s a total interdependence there. And we as journalists have a stake, whether we like it or not, and whether democracy works well and whether people are engaged. If people are not engaged in public life, they have no need for journalists. Because what we do is about public life for the most part. And if people continue to withdraw from concerns about public life and engagement in public life, our downward trends are going to continue and accelerate. We have a vested interest as journalists as well as democratic citizens and people being engaged in public life. And I make no apology for the notion that democracy works best when people are fully engaged in it. That’s sort of the essence of the idea.

Welcome, Elaine!

The Silha Center is pleased to introduce its new administrative assistant, Elaine Hargrove-Simon. Ms. Hargrove-Simon comes to the Center with a wealth of experience in office management and a diverse educational background, which includes an undergraduate degree in journalism. She has worked for the University of Minnesota since 1993, and has been on staff at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication since 1996.

Ms. Hargrove-Simon is enrolled in the Master of Liberal Studies program at the University, with a concentration in Slavic area studies. She also has an interest in theater and film, and was the recipient of the Danny Arnold Writing Scholarship for a screenplay while studying at the University of Wisconsin-Superior.

Ms. Hargrove-Simon replaces Kathleen Paul, who was the Silha Center administrative assistant for nine years. Ms. Paul has retired to start her own business. Both Ms. Paul and Ms. Hargrove-Simon see the programs and missions of the Center as vital to the Center’s continued growth. Ms. Hargrove-Simon says, "As a consumer and student of the news, I feel very fortunate to be so closely involved with the journalism world, particularly at this point, where it intersects with academia and research."