Public Journalism vs. Traditional Journalism

There are two distinct sides to the debate of journalism, their journalists, and the consumers: traditional journalism and public journalism. In the current digital age there is a greater number of public journalism being practiced. However, journalists and their consumers run into several issues concerning that matter. To express more clearly, there are particular roles and characteristics in which journalism standards are being gauged.

The four dimensions of journalism, as mentioned by Don Heider, Maxwell McCombs, and Paula M. Poindexter in What The Public Expects Of Local News: Views On Public And Traditional Journalism, include good neighbor, watchdog, unbiased and accurate, and fast. (Heider, McCombs, Poindexter 952) With that said, traditional journalism strongly fulfills those attributes as opposed to public journalism.

Much is being discovered when the public, also known as the consumers and recipients of the news, share their views on journalistic practices. One might suggest that traditional journalism has, in due course, come to an end. Although, there are definitely problems that the public runs into with public journalism taking over. A few of those arguments include their content, the journalists, and the effects that it has on their public audience.

The idea that lies behind public journalism is that citizens that lack any formal experience are able to utilize the tools of modern technology alongside the limitless Internet to practice a form of journalism that allows the audience to inform one another. There is a sense of freedom with public journalism, also known as civic journalism. In this digital age, public journalism is easier to access due to laptops and cellular devices. It is true that public jou...

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...ports are being posted by anyone, both professional and unprofessional journalists. The public, being the unprofessional journalists, are not being demanded to state particular things when they are covering a story, they lose structure and focus.

To conclude, when public journalism is being practiced, a larger percentage of reports face an innumerable amount of issues that lie in their content, the journalists themselves, and their audience. What is being reported by professionals, traditional journalist, constitutes as “good journalism” because of their ability to maintain and provide accurate, unbiased reports, fulfill being a good neighbor and watchdog, while adjusting to our growing technological advancements with an newer and improved rapid reporting. Thus, traditional journalism holds the persisting dominance over their competitors, public journalism.