Last Updated: May 26, 1999
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On public journalism
Pew Center is about listening, not handouts
Let’s not be cynical, the Center for Civic Journalism
doesn’t fund day-today expenses for participating newspapers and the average
contract amounts to $28,000
By Ed Fouhy
One disagrees with Rich Oppel at one’s peril. He is creative, innovative
and thoughtful, he thinks outside the box and those qualities have enlivened
his newspaper.
We agree on everything when it comes to the core values of journalism.
But he gets it wrong when he attacks foundation funding of civic journalism
initiatives. And it’s easy to understand why. Inaccurate reporting by what
Oppel terms "Washington writers" have misled him and who knows how many
others, about how Pew Center money may be used.
Oppel says he would refuse Pew money "to pay for reporters, editors
and their expenses." So would any independent-minded editor. That’s why
our guidelines are so explicit — no Pew Center money may be used for either
reporters or newshole.
What we do help with are the extraordinary expenses associated with
doing the kind of thinking and reporting it’s necessary to do when moving
from old journalism practices to civic journalism.
A word of explanation for those who haven’t followed this debate; civic
journalism says that the public life of the community is important to cover,
that the public’s voice deserves to be heard and considered just as seriously
as the experts’ voice when a community is struggling toward a decision.
But how does a newspaper find the public voice in its community? By
listening. Listening hard. Trouble is, successful listening is expensive
in reporter time and other newsroom resources.
That’s where the Pew Center comes in.
Thinking of convening a public meeting? Journalists aren’t very good
at organizing events but community coordinators are, and the Pew Center
will help pay for one. Want to bring Rich Harwood or one of the other good
consultants into the newsroom to increase reporters’ listening skills?
We’ll pay for that. Think polling or focus groups would be useful? We’ll
help there too.
Our funding is strictly limited. Our average sub-contract is about $28,000,
small potatoes in million-dollar budgets, but, we have learned, it’s often
essential seed money when newsrooms are experimenting, trying to develop
new skills that will help reconnect them to their readers, when the press
is seen as arrogant and detached from the public life of a community at
best, irrelevant at worst.
Nearly all funding relationships end after one year.
In the market-driven atmosphere of the ’90s it’s easy to be cynical
about the real motive behind foundation money. But the fact is Pew Center
funding is venture capital for new ideas, fuel for risky ventures. It does
not demand a return.
The Pew Center isn’t a faceless monolith with a hidden agenda. It is
two people with a combined total of more than 50 years experience in big-time
journalism, trying to plant a few seeds that will, we hope, mature into
better ways for journalists to do their jobs. Pew’s goal is simple and
very public; to improve civic life.
So what’s the fear? Loss of independence? An industry built on advertising
dollars, (dollars not as disinterested as a foundation’s) learned to safeguard
its independence long ago. Is a newspaper’s integrity so fragile that it’s
threatened by a foundation’s encouragement of a new venture, a venture
conceived by that newspaper’s editor, not by the Pew Center?
How about a deal, Rich? We will continue to respect the integrity and
independence of you and your fellow editors if you will respect our role
as hands-off coaches, cheerleaders and advocates of better journalism.
Fouhy is executive director of the Pew Center for Civic Journalism.
