Town Halls and Civic Journalism

As news media across the country report on the "August revolt" at Democratic town hall meetings, many don't seem to take a critical look at how the meetings are being conducted, or to offer alternatives.   

In Public Journalism and Public Life: Why Telling the News is Not Enough (1998), Davis "Buzz" Merritt, one of the founders of the civic journalism movement, wrote that "[public/civic journalism] moves beyond the limited mission of telling the news to a broader mission of helping public life go well, and out of that imperative. When public life is going well, true deliberation occurs and leads to potential solutions."     

From that public perspective, we might ask what types of coverage could help public life go well and facilitate deliberation. Are just the stories of disruption and shouting getting most of the headlines?  Do these town hall meetings have ground rules?  Are there instances of town hall meeting with basic ground rules and facilitation?  What might be the role of the press?  What are the alternatives?  

First, Slate.com's Explainer answers the question, "do town halls have rules," with a resounding no.   Political town halls are generally informal gatherings where constituents can have their voice heard.  The process is up to the organizer.  Town hall meetings are the descendants of New England "town meetings."  Since the 1600s, town governments of New England have held highly regimented meetings for decision-making.   

For some instances of town hall meetings on health care reform that had  ground rules or different formats, see:

• Editorial Board blog at DemocratAndChronicle.com Rochester, NY area  
  
• Front page news story in the Atlanta-Journal Constitution, "Strong but civil discussion marks health care event," complete with "Speaking Rules" sidebar
• Markey to share George Washington's 'Rules of Civility' at meeting, the Coloradoan.com 
• "Walz and Sebelius find 'Teletownhall' success: a useful health-care discussion without chants, shouts,"  MinnPost.com

For more insight on consensus building alternatives, see:  

• "Health Care Reform and a Plea for Civility" column in the Atlanta-Journal Constitution.  Jim Gallaway profiles  Mark DeMoss, a Republican Southern Baptist who founded the bipartisan organization, civilityproject.org
• Martin Carcasson, director of Colorado State University's Center for Public Deliberation, "Dealing with High Emotion and 'Staged Anger': Tips for Legislators"-- post with analysis and suggestions on the National Center for Dialogue and Deliberation listserv.
• Listen to Martin Carcasson and Peter Levine on the NPR/WHYY-FM call-in program, "Radio Times"--podcast
• Members of the National Dialogue and Deliberation respond on blogs and more.
• New York Times op-ed, "Town Halls by Invitation" by James Fishkin, director of the Center for Deliberative Democracy at Stanford University.   
  
• Lawrence Susskind,  director of Harvard's Public Disputes program and founder of the Consensus Building Institute points asks: "Would you throw someone with no diplomatic experience into a high-level peace-making situation? I hope not. They'd get eaten alive. Would you throw someone into a red or blue leadership role who had no formal training in negotiation or consensus building? We do it all the time! Legal, political, administrative, or corporate experience is not necessarily consensus-building experience.  See   "How Should You Respond to the noisy health care reform critics" and "Hey, C'mon why can't Red and Blues agree"  on Susskind's blog.  

 Mary Beth Callie

 CCJIG chair, 2009-10

Regis University, Denver 

CCJIG's annual report for 2008-09 records significant achievements, key aspirations

I have placed on file CCJIG's annual report (and demographic profile) (pdf, 293 kb) for 2008-09.

The group's chief achievements for the year:

• Membership jumped by about 30 per cent to 116, from 89 a year ago. Of those registered members, 57 were female; six identified themselves as African-American, two as Asian-American, and 12 as International.

• CCJIG emerged as AEJMC’s largest interest group (by number of registered members), as announced by Council of Divisions chair Kimberly Bissell at the mid-winter meeting in Louisville, Kentucky, on 6 Dec. 2008.

• Entries for the 2009 research paper competition increased 50 per cent to 27 from 18 a year ago, including a record 14 graduate student paper submissions.

• An update of CCJIG’s research bibliography was published.

• New collaborations (Law & Policy and History; also Harvard University and MIT) were established for convention activities. Old collaborations were maintained (Community Journalism, Media Ethics, Newspaper, Council of Affiliates).

• The CCJIG blog, with more than 120 posts, became a primary catalyst of member discussion, meeting a key goal listed in the previous annual report.

• An additional 100 or so posts on AEJMC Talk, many of them repeats or elaborations of CCJIG blog posts, exposed the larger AEJMC membership to civic and citizen journalism discussions.

• Three newsletters (Fall 2008, Spring 2009, and Summer 2009) were published and circulated inside and outside of the group by newsprint and e-mail, each to about 200 receivers.

• As of 30 July 2009, CCJIG's account had a balance of $3766.50.

• CCJIG secured a $400 travel grant from AEJMC to fund the 2009 Boston convention travel of a non-member panelist from New York.

The report also lists CCJIG’s goals for the coming year. Some of those goals reflect perceived weaknesses; their order of priority is to be decided by the in-coming officers.

The group's goals for 2009-10:

• Facilitate a discussion of CCJIG possibly applying to be an AEJMC Division, in a light of the group's quickly rising membership, the ubiquity of user-generated media, and the burgeoning scholarship of citizen journalism.

• Maintain the CCJIG blog as a primary catalyst of member discussion, partly by encouraging blog participation by a cross-section of the membership.

• Increase membership of minority and International scholars by 5 per cent overall.

• Facilitate two or three Teaching panels in Denver 2010 (in Boston 2009 the group had only one) so that a relative balance may be restored between CCJIG’s Research, Teaching and PF&R activities.

• Increase submissions of research papers by 10 per cent (from the 27 papers in Boston 2009) and enhance the quality of scholarship, particularly that related to citizen-journalistic responsibility.

• Maintain an updated bibliography, preferably annotated.

• Facilitate an increase of 10 per cent in submission of research papers related to (a) newer and rapidly evolving technologies such as Twitter or its progeny, or (b) the impact of new writing styles on citizen-journalistic credibility or responsibility.

• Maintain overall acceptance rate of research competition papers at the current 55.55 per cent to par a course set by the Research Committee (known as the "50 per cent guideline").

• Publish a teaching compendium to address the curriculum, content and pedagogy areas of the Teaching Committee standards; particular effort may be needed from CCJIG’s teaching standards chair (this will be a goal carried forward from 2007-08).

• Organize a symposium or other meeting, online or offline, to mark the 20th anniversary – in 2010 – of James Batten's 1990 address that was a bellwether in the citizen journalism movement (this will be a goal modified and carried forward from 2007-08).

• Continue the top paper awards. (Re-institution of the two $151 "best paper" awards in 2008 may explain part of the 50 per cent jump in paper submissions for Boston 2009).

I wish to record my deep appreciation for the devoted service to our group in 2008-09 by fellow officers Mary Beth Callie, Deborah Chung, Burton St. John, Kirsten A. Johnson, Glenn Scott, Jeff South, Serena Carpenter and Clyde Bentley.

"How can we know if a citizen journalist is not slanting/fabricating?"

On August 4 at one o'clock in Boston, AEJMC's Civic & Citizen Journalism Interest Group will bring together some top scholars to discuss the citizen journalism which unraveled the terrorist attack on one of my favorite cities, Mumbai, November 27-29 of 2008.

In yesterday's New York Times, foreign editor Susan Chira answers an "interesting question" from a reader in Mumbai, India.

Q. Glad to see you answering our questions this time. I am a resident of Mumbai, India, and during the horrific terror attacks in November last year, social media tools, like blogging and Twitter, came to the forefront, in terms of information avenues. Even though these tools display the power of citizen journalism, why is it that credibility is such an issue with blogger and tweeters and not with mainstream media? Especially when in dire situations, the on-the-go Twitter user provides more updates than a regular news channel. ... Is there a credibility gap or is mainstream media refusing to accept that blogs and tweets are the new face of journalism?

— Rehab G. Chougle, Mumbai

A. Dear Mr. Chougle: . . . Like many tools of the Web, Twitter, blogs and citizen journalists can be an important resource, but also present signficant challenges. Obviously, I'm biased because I'm a product of the mainstream media. But journalists in the mainstream media are expected to meet well-established criteria and standards. They go through training, sometimes in professional schools and sometimes on the job, which helps them make decisions about the reliability of information that are far more complicated than I think many citizen journalists, bloggers or Twitterers may realize. How do you weigh when a source is telling the truth? How do you identify people's ideological agendas, and how that may color the information or opinions or analysis they pass on? When are you satisified you have independently confirmed information or facts you are told to consider as a given? While of course we at the Times may stumble,and make mistakes, anyone hired here or sent abroad as a foreign correspondent has proven, again and again, that he or she understands those standards and can meet them. And The Times is an institution that can be held accountable for its errors. . . .

More here.

Plus see: Some thoughts on citizen journalism and Mumbai
Also: A sustainable model emerges
And: CCJIG's program for the 2009 Boston convention
And: 3G technology promises more power to citizen journalists
And: A sustainable model emerges

Instructions to submit to AEJMC

Today AEJMC published instructions for paper submitters. Here's the Uniform Paper Call for the Boston convention for your reading pleasure.

If you plan to direct your submission to CCJIG, here's our call, to be read in conjunction with the instructions. I look forward to all the good research!

Transformation, emergence and norms: The promise of another great year

As CCJIG's incoming head for 2008-09, my big, big welcome to you.

What a year it promises to be! An engaging, and in many ways historic, presidential campaign is upon us. Emerging technologies have gone beyond "disrupting" newsrooms/studios to set norms for journalism practice/assessment. Convergence, of technologies and of skills, is the great new catalyst. Models of sustaining civic and citizen journalism are evolving as quickly as ever. The mass media's buffeting by gales of transformation continues, in business models and in consumer patronage. Journalism programs are increasingly using classrooms to address the pedagogy/practice of civic and citizen journalism. The collective intelligence is taking on traditional gatekeeping roles like never before.

Clearly, our field is growing in several directions all at an unprecedented pace. It is as relevant to democracy, to the media industries, as ever. And, as Sue Ellen Christian's bibliography evidenced, the scholars are catching up. More books, more research, more deliberation. Folks, we have a movement going!

In a day or two CCJIG will publish, on this blog and in other forums, our annual call for panel proposals. Please send your proposal in. Let's plan a stimulating agenda for Boston in 2009, as we did for Chicago in 2008.

As I take charge I would like to express deep gratitude to Jack Rosenberry, the outgoing head, for his captaincy in 2007-08. Jack's eye for detail might make him something of a legend if a history of our group is ever written. I'd like to also acknowledge the other outgoing officers for their enthusiastic service.

Let's keep the conversation going!

Nikhil Moro, Ph.D.
Chair, Civic & Citizen Journalism Interest Group, 2008-09