The Two W's of Journalism: The Why and What of Public Affairs Reporting

175 Pages·2003·8.45 MB·English

by  Davis "Buzz" Merritt

The Two W's of Journalism
The Why and What
of Public Affairs Reporting
LEA'S COMMUNICATION SERIES
Jennings Bryant/Dolf Zillmann, General Editors
Selected titles in Journalism (Maxwell McCombs, Advisory Editor) include:
Bunker • Critiquing Free Speech: First Amendment Theory
and the Challenge of Interdisciplinarity
Garrison • Professional Feature Writing, Fourth Edition
Heider • White News: Why Local News Programs Don't Cover People
of Color
Merrill/Gade/Blevens • Twilight of Press Freedom: The Rise of People's
Journalism
Merritt • Public Journalism and Public Life: Why Telling the News is Not
Enough, Second Edition
Wanta • The Public and the National Agenda: How People Learn About
Important Issues
For a complete list of titles in LEA's Communication Series, please contact
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers at www.erlbaum.com
The Two W's of Journalism
The Why and What
of Public Affairs Reporting
Davis Merritt
Author
"Public Journalism and Public Life:
Why Telling the News is Not Enough'
Maxwell McCombs
University of Texas at Austin
li&
LAWRENCE ERLBAUM ASSOCIATES, PUBLISHERS
2004 Mahwah, New Jersey London
Copyright © 2004 by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by
photostat, microform, retrieval system, or any other means, without prior
written permission of the publisher.
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., Publishers
10 Industrial Avenue
Mahwah, NJ 07430
Cover design by Sean Sciarrone
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Merritt Davis.
The two W;s of journalism : the why and what of public affairs journalism /
Davis "Buzz" Merritt and Maxwell McCombs.
p. cm. (LEA's communication series)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8058-4730-8 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN 0-8058-4731-6 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Journalism—Political aspects—United States. 2. Journalism—Social
aspects—United States. I. McCombs, Maxwell E. II. Title. III. Series.
PN4888 2003.P6M39
07T.3—dc21 2003046233
CIP
Books published by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates are printed on acid-free
paper, and their bindings are chosen for strength and durability.
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 21
To Libby, for all the reasons she knows
—Davis Merritt
For Betsy and my children, Molly,
Leslie, Max, and Sam
—Max McCombs
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Contents
About the Authors xiii
Preface ix
Introduction xi
PART I
1 The Why 3
2 Why We Have a First Amendment 9
3 Conflicting Visions of Democracy 19
4 The Evolution of Journalism 31
5 What the Public Needs to Know 40
6 Three Publics for the News 50
7 Technology and the New Millennium 60
PART II
8 The What 69
9 Sampling the News 72
10 Framing Stories and Positioning Citizens 80
11 Positioning Ourselves as Journalists 91
12 Deliberation 106
13 Elections 119
vii
VIII CONTENTS
14 Polling—Use and Abuse 132
15 A Map of the Future 146
Author Index 151
Subject Index 155
About the Authors
Davis "Buzz" Merritt was a reporter and editor for Knight Newspapers
and Knight Ridder Inc. for 43 years, retiring after 23 years as editor of The
Wichita Eagle. Since leaving The Eagle, he has taught media ethics and a
seminar on journalism and democracy at the University of Kansas and
Wichita State University, consulted with news organizations and written ar-
ticles, newspaper columns, and books. He wrote the seminal book on public
journalism, Public Journalism and Public Life: Why Telling the News Is
Not Enough, published by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. The 1996 second
edition received a citation from Pennsylvania State University for media
criticism.
Maxwell McCombs, who is internationally recognized for his research on
the agenda-setting role of mass communication, holds the Jesse H. Jones
Centennial Chair in Communication at the University of Texas at Austin
and is a professor on the associated faculty of Catholic University in Santi-
ago, Chile. Prior to joining the Texas faculty, McCombs was the John Ben
Snow Professor of Research at Syracuse University and also served simul-
taneously for 10 years as director of the News Research Center of the Amer-
ican Newspaper Publishers Association. McCombs has been on the
faculties of the University of North Carolina and U.C.L. A. and a reporter for
the New Orleans Times-Picayune.
IX