Journalism as a Public Forum

Journalism has always provided a public forum for comments and citizen journalism. However, with the burst of technology in the journalism world, the public forum has been expanded because everyone can contribute to journalism. In an article by Christine Chinlund, she talks about the public forum has expanded in all media outlets. In broadcast and radio news, talk shows have increased and with the advent of the argument culture, the talk shows are focused on the polarization. The opinions of the hosts and guests are almost always the extremes, which leaves out the majority of Americans whose ideology falls between the extremes.

Additionally, the internet has expanded the public forum, which makes it more difficult, but necessary to rely on good newsgathering techniques. “The new communication format … already has demonstrated that the urge to comment replaces the urge to verify.” This in turn leads to the rise of news commentators, who often lack experience in journalism and democracy, but are often called journalists.

Roy Peter Clark, the senior scholar at the Poynter Institute says that the media has become alienated from the public by becoming a professional class. However, the media needs to be more like the public in order to properly serve their audience, which sometimes requires crossing the line of journalistic independence and becoming involved in community organizations. However, if journalists become more like the public, they can form a more effective public forum where readers can comment and have a say in the news.

An Article in the Press Gazette talks about how one of the functions of the media is to provide a public forum. The most basic form of public forum through the media is the op-ed page where columnists can write their opinions, and the audience can write back. Because the responses are published, it opens up a dialogue between journalists and the public, which increases the capability of the media to understand and write about the public. Additionally, talk shows are becoming more popular with the book referring to over 175 hours of news every day. The article says that although this provides a public forum, it does not enhance the public discourse. However, the internet and citizen journalists have massively increased the public forum because the public can respond almost immediately after the story is published. Although this increases the public forum, it is not always quality information that has been verified and often are personal insults towards other commentators.