[10699] in Public-Access_Computer_Systems_Forum
FINS
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (PACS-L Moderator)
Mon Oct 7 21:16:44 1996
Date: Mon, 07 Oct 1996 18:13:30 -0500 (CDT)
From: PACS-L Moderator <libpacs@UH.EDU>
To: Multiple recipients of list PACS-L <PACS-L@UHUPVM1.UH.EDU>
Reply-To: Public-Access Computer Systems Forum <PACS-L@UHUPVM1.UH.EDU>
----------------------------Original message----------------------------
>From: Vigdor Schreibman - FINS <fins@access.digex.net>
>Subject: Legislative Power Sharing
>
>----------------Original Message Posted in Multiple Lists-----------------
>-------Republication is Authorized Only When Message is Kept Intact-------
>
>FINS: Communicating the Emerging Philosophy of The Information Age
>FEDERAL INFORMATION NEWS SYNDICATE
>Vol IV, Issue No. 21 (155 lines) October 6, 1996
>
>
>CLOSING THE "VALUES-GAP":
>Legislative Power Sharing
>By Vigdor Schreibman
>
> A challenge was issued that journalists become activists,"
> in a column written in 1990, by David Broder of the Washington
> Post, one of the best respected political reporters of his
> time. Broder's call for activism by journalists was, "not on
> behalf of a particular party or politician, but on behalf of
> the process of self-government." This is the striking vision
> of "Public journalism," now gaining momentum among many local
> and regional news services, across the United States.
>
> For a web page on the "Public journalism" movement,
> perspectives, and stories see: http://www.cpn.org/
> sections/topics/journalism/journalism.html.
>
> There is significant conflict over public journalism. Some
> view, "The community-building function [as] central to the
> journalistic mission of any serious newspaper," says Steve
> Yelvington, Star Tribune Online, Minneapolis-St. Paul, in an
> online-news debate on the subject, April 1995 [Fins-PaN-22].
> Countering this view, online news developer Donovan White, of
> L.A. Times, says that's "pretty much pap and twiddle - a twist
> of the net-ethos applied to an academic view of newspapers."
>
> FINS has been in the vanguard of public journalism,
> "Communicating the emerging philosophy of the Information
> Age." Reacting unjustly to this activism, an editorial in The
> Hill newspaper, April 30, 1996, advocated that the Periodical
> Press Galleries at the US Capitol, "Keep advocates out,"
> disregarding cherished freedom of the press [Fins-NC4-11]. Now
> comes Jonathan Yardley, in a column in the Washington Post,
> Sept 30, 1996, denouncing, "Public journalism" as an
> "insidious, dangerous idea."
>
> The meaning of this harsh and unjust struggle over public
> journalism, is derived from an ancient political thesis. In
> the 220 years since the beginning of the drama of the birth
> and gradual degradation of democracy in America, political
> leaders have upheld the custom that power exercised by the
> people's representatives in the legislature was to be
> "independent of any instruction or direction by the
> electorate." This independence theory of legislation was
> first championed by the English parliamentarian Edmund Burke,
> in a speech given at Bristol, England, November 3, 1774.
> Burke had a utopian vision of the work of representatives,
> when they were "free to exercise their own best judgment." He
> thought a representative could best serve, if their "first
> loyalty was to the longer-term interests of the country,
> especially when such interests differed from parochial moods
> of the moment." However, revealing the root of his rejection
> of legislative direction by the electorate, Burke observed,
> "We are members of a great and ancient monarchy; and we must
> preserve religiously, the true rights of the sovereign, which
> form the key-stone that binds together the noble and well
> constructed arch of our empire and our constitution."
>
> The sovereign English monarchy gave way to the sovereign
American citizen, with the birth of the United States of
> America. Nevertheless, as the late French philosopher Michel
> Foucault observed, "At bottom, despite the differences in
> epochs and objectives, the representation of power has
> remained under the spell of monarchy. In political thought
> and analysis, we still have not cut off the head of the king."
>
>
> Yardley invoked, in his column, the same ancient theory of
> political power to preserve the independence of newspaper
> journalists in determining "which issues are important and
> which are not." That value judgment is without a sound basis
> in morality, systems management, or under the US Constitution.
> The citizen's sovereign power to decide is at issue. This is
> the fountainhead of Republic Government, which no one may
> usurp. Yet such political screens, and others arbitrarily
> exercised by a constellation of contemporary power brokers,
> have all but defeated self-governance, making sovereign
> citizens mere spectators in the game of politics.
>
> Now the United States is host to a new revolution. In the
> tremor of deep social transformations imposed by information
> technology, the tectonic plates of political power are being
> reshaped. The diminished geographic relevance of local and
> regional news services have rendered counter productive, any
> attempt by those organs to exercise independent political
> powers. The palpable interdependence between news services,
> journalists, and the citizenry to be served--whether as
> reader, viewer, or listener--has become increasingly evident.
>
> Adapting creatively to this situation, some local and
> regional news groups are turning toward a citizen-centered
> psychology of legislative power sharing, and away from the
> customary exercise of power, "independent of any instruction
> or direction by the electorate." Expressing his concern over
> this new situation, Yardley described the comment of Rick
> Thames, "public editor" of the Charlotte Observer in an
> interview with the New York Times last month. Yardley writes:
>
> "[T]here's more concern than ever before in the media as
> to whether the candidates are really addressing issues
> that matter to readers and the public," and that it was
> the aim of the North Carolina media coalition to fill in
> the blanks in the political dialogue.
>
> Case studies (reported at the PJ movement web site), reveal
> that journalists are now polling the voters, and facilitating
> collective deliberation about what issues most concern them,
> then running comprehensive reports on the candidates' position
> regarding priority issues. This work is helping to realize
> the important process of democratic self-government, by
> connecting the news and democracy, engaging the entire public
> in the decisions that affect them all in the long term, and
> offering critical commentary on the complicated issued that
> the public should understand. This is the core set of ideas
> of public journalism, inspired by the educational philosophy
> of John Dewey, and the leadership values of columnist Walter
> Lippmann, which have been reevaluated in up-to-date context by
> James Fallows, "Breaking The News" (1996): ch 6.
>
In shifting power to decide on the legislative agenda away
> from the independent judgement of legislative representatives
> toward structures, which are unsettled, responsibility cannot
> be privatized. The legislative agenda for public goods such
> as libraries, schools, health promotion, clean air, and local
> government, must not be left overly dependent upon business
> news priorities, whatever may be their espoused purposes.
>
> A democratic National Information Infrastructure (dNII),
> should have public channels managed by democratic community
> institutions [Fins-CS-06]. This could also support balance
> between the values of economic prosperity, social equity and
> ecological integrity, which are essential to the well being of
> the people and survival of the biosphere of Planet Earth.
>
>==========================================================================
>*THE PENNY PRESS AND CITIZEN-BASED JOURNALISM IS RETURNING WITH A VENGEANCE*
>----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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>--------------------------------------------------------------------------F
ederal Information News Syndicate, Vigdor Schreibman, Editor & Publisher,
>18 - 9th Street NE #206, Washington, DC 20002-6042. Copyright 1996 FINS.
>Internet: fins@access.digex.net. Browse Fins Information Age Library at
the inforM system of the University of Maryland. HTTP: //www.inform.umd.edu:
>8080/EdRes/Topic/CompResource/CompSoc/FINS/; Gopher to inform.umd.edu:
>EdRes/Topic/CompResource/CompSoc/FINS/.
>==========================================================================
