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Wednesday, September 21, 2005
Editorials: Civic journalism plus . .
Civic journalism is basically pro viding people with "news and information they need in order for them to behave as citizens, decision makers in a democratic society."
Civic journalism has to do mainly with content of the newspaper and how it can make readers act as citizens aware of their rights and obligations.
Content of news and information must convince the reader his duty carries as much weight as his right to help shape public policy and action.
Without brandishing the label and in a more modest scale, Sun.Star Cebu has been practicing civic journalism.
The paper has focused on jobs and the economy, peace and order, orderly transfer of power, public funds, public education, official conduct, plight of women and children, environment issues especially air and water, urban blight, and neglect of the countryside. These are major concerns of the community.
Civic journalism, we are told, starts with learning what is the community's agenda and continues by pursuing that agenda.
We believe Sun.Star is on that track.
Sun.Star stories and commentaries on vigilante or vigilante-style killings stab at the core of the peace and order issue. Cebu City cannot have peace when faceless and nameless executioners can murder defenseless people and go unpunished.
Sun.Star special reports on trafficking of women and children and the problem of water give situation reports and chart courses of action.
Sun.Star, with news and opinion, has warned against power grab and the imperative of constitutional transition but also argues against public officials accused of cheating and graft and getting away with it.
True, Sun.Star regards its readers as consumers to whom goods and services are sold. Papers survive on advertising revenue and Sun.Star is no exception.
Sun.Star, however, treats its audience as more than consumers. As the civic journalism concept sees it, readers are "citizens with responsibilities of self-government."
Even as we put more effort into becoming better civic journalists ourselves, we hope citizen journalists will help us in the job.
..Citizen journalists
In trying to learn what the community agenda is, Sun.Star has turned to views of focus groups, opinion surveys, and academic papers.
More extensively, we have scanned public opinion in subsections of Sun.Star's Op-Ed pages (such as Talk Back, Speak Out, Text Forum, Complaints Forum), in grievances and suggestions that land on our Errors Desk, and in similar features in other media.
Through a network of journalists from Sun.Star Cebu and Sun.Star Superbalita [Cebu], we have shortlisted what the public worries about.
Today, we launch the "Wanted: Citizen Journalists" project, in a continuing effort to "reconnect with the real concerns that readers have about the issues in their lives they care most about..."
On top of what we have been doing to cross whatever gap between the paper and its readers, we have expanded our interaction structure in the two papers and Sun.Star Cebu Online.
Citizen journalists can now report in text and photos and express their opinions on community issues to print forums of the two papers and to the web log "Citizen Journalist" (www.sunstar.com.ph/cebu/cj).
What sees light on the website may go to print; what sees print may go to the website, subject to editing rules and legal restraints and rules of good taste.
Citizen journalists, we trust, can help us "ferret out issues of interest to citizens who are not members of the elite." Those issues can include their children's education, their security in and outside their homes, and the economic future they face.
It will be a new and arduous task for journalists used to looking largely at their own agenda. It will be new and even disconcerting to a public used to sitting back and shunning citizenship duties.
Whatever the difficulties, whichever way the project goes, "Wanted: Citizen Journalists" will be an exciting and challenging phase in Sun.Star and community journalism.
(September 21, 2005 issue)
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