Asia Pacific Media Educator Asia Pacific Media Educator

Issue 4 Article 14

1-1998

Community journalism in the field: Health and hazards in the news Community journalism in the field: Health and hazards in the news

R. W. Blood Charles Sturt University

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Blood, R. W., Community journalism in the field: Health and hazards in the news, Asia Pacific

Media Educator, 4, 1998, 115-128.

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Community JournalismIn The Field: Health And

Hazards In The News

Thisarticle examines thecurrent debate aboutcommunity (or public, orcivic) journalism which re-defines the role of journalists, theirrelationships with theircommunities, and promotes new waysof thinkingabout news. It examines the objectives of community journalism andcompares them with traditional journalistic practice and with earliercalls for journalists to apply social science methods in examining andreporting 0/1 community public opinion. It describes a study incommunity journalism currently being completed by final yearjournalism students reporting on health and environmentalhazards inrural communities.

R. Wanvick BloodCharles Sturt University. Bathurst

Reaction s by practitioners and educators against themainstream journalism paradigm in western democratic

societies are well documented (Bennett et aI, 1985). Throughoutthe last three decades journalism's experiments with alternativeapproaches include: the literary journalism of the 19605 and 1970s;precision journalism of the late 1970s; developmental journalismemerging in the 1960s; and, the latest, civic or public or communityjournalism of the late 19805. This article reports on ideas aboutcommunity journalism used to inform a study currently beingcompleted by final-year journalism students.

American journalism, we are told, is in turmoil. RespectedAmerican broadcaster Marvin Kalb (1998: 4) writes that "thejournalism of the last twentieth century needs the couragedisplayed in the late eighteenth century, or else it could bend tooverwhelming' corporate and government pressures and therebychange the nature of American democracy". Tom Brokaw, thejournalist-presenter of America's NBC Network news admits thatthe"most powerful instruments of local news, the local televisionstations, have all but abandoned serious political and government

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coverage" (Brokaw, 1998:6). He is also highly critical of the natureof the national press coverage by networks of social and politicalissues, especially during presidential election years.

The American press' poor performance during the 1988presidential election is one cause of the current critical commentaryabout American journalism. As Gitlin (1990: 19) notes, not onlydid the American press present the all-familiar presidential horse­race coverage during the 1988 presidential year, but it alsopresented an insider's view; a view he characterises as an irrelevanttour "backstage, behind the horse-race, into the paddock, thestables, the clubhouse, and the bookie joints".

Comments on single events are now expanded togeneralisations. Kalb and Norris (1996:1) note that the Americanpress of the 1990sis charged with irresponsibility and its journalistsaccused of deep cynicism. As they proclaim in an editorial in theHarvard International Journal of Press/Politics: "You name theproblem, the press is viewed the culprit. It is coarse. It is elitist. Itis not connected to the people. It does not act responsibly. It is notaccountable. It follows its own agenda. Off with its head!"

Kalb and Norris' comments are by no means isolated andthe reasons for the turmoil between journalists and theircommunities are many, varied and complex. In broadcasting,increased channel diversity and corporate profit demands areevident and, in print, where circulation for some newspapers andnews magazines is declining, the scene is similar. But there is alsoa fundamental philosophical change occurring in Americanjournalism mainly resulting from the widespread belief thatjournalists have become disconnected from the communities theyserve (eg: Gunaratne, 1998; Charity, 1995; Merritt, 1995; Rosen &Merritt, 1994).

The main contention is that the American press' poorperformance causes disinterest by most people in public life; adisinterest fuelled by the lack of adequate knowledge. What iswrong with, or at least perceived to be wrong with, Americanjournalism does not necessarily apply elsewhere, althoughparallels are often drawn (eg: Four Corners, 1997).

In response to these challenges and questions, a group ofsenior American journalists in the late 19805 began experimentingwith a new form of their craft, an experiment which continues incontroversy. Echoing the progressive and reformist zeal of theirjournalistic forefathers, they reasoned that the social, political andcultural problems which had attracted them in their younger daysto journalism were not being solved. They believed they were partof the problem. As a main advocate, Arthur Charity (1995: 1)writes:

"Inner cities continued to decay, deficits to grow, schoolsto flounder; city hall and statehouse policies were as unfocused

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as ever, It was their business as journalists to push along the'national debate' on such issues, but by the 19905 any person couldsee there was no national debate in the honourable, perhapsidealistic marketplace of ideas; rather, elections andadministrations came and went, with mediocre half-measureswinning out more often than sound full measures, and almostalways with little or no public involvement."

Thus, against the backdrop of decreasing publicparticipation in community and national life, and growingcynicism about the press, community journalism was born.Definitions of community, civic, communitarian or publicjournalism are unclear and there are no agreed upon precisedefinitions of each (see, for example, Gunaratne, 1988). I use theterm community journalism as a summary of the main thrust ofthe movement.

Charity offers three metaphors to capture the essentialidea of community journalism and its radical departure from thetraditional view - the journalist as expert facilitator; the journalistas civic capitalist, and the journalist as a full-time involved citizen(Charity, 1995:11).

First, community journalists are said to be experts inpublic life and thus, for example, a police rounds reporter sits notonly with the police but also with the government, the victims,the criminals, and the community in an attempt to create dialoguebetween all stakeholders. Secondly, community journalists arecivic capitalists and grass roots promoters of democracy, foreversearching, examining and re-examining ways to strengthencommunity goodwill, cooperation, and insights into the positionsof other social groups. For example, the continuing, often violent,abortion debate should not be constantly portrayed as pro-choiceversus pro-life but approached by attempts to create communitydialogue. Thirdly, traditional journalists talk of readers or viewersbut community journalists talk of citizens. Community journalistsare fellow citizens who know they enjoy a privileged position aspaid, full-time professional citizens, while their fellow citizensare forced by time, money, access and circumstance to be part­time participants.

Gunaratne (1988) views" public" journalism as based onan attempt to re-define traditional news by de-emphasisingobjectivity and detachment, the promotion of news as a dialogueor conversation with the community, and the re-positioning ofjournalists into the community as active facilitators of serious talkinvolving the community.

Glasser and Craft (1996: 153) summarise the position as:"a departure, in principle, if not always in practice, from certaintime-honored norms concerning the separation between the press

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and its readers, viewers or listeners. It thus represents an earnesteffort to examine, though not necessarily reject, many ofjournalism's questionable premises and unquestionedassumptions" .

The main reactions against community journalism centreon these "time-honoured" assumptions and premises ­objectivity, and detachment from news sources and the community,and news as information. By re-defining the role of the journalist(active citizen within, and attached to, the community) and byproposing new ways of thinking about news (bottom-upcommunity defined dialogue versus top-down journalistic definedinformation), community journalism provokes sharp reaction(Hoyt, 1995).

First, community journalism's presented philosophicalunderpinnings cause disquiet. For example, Christians et a1. (1993)propose a "communitarian journalism" which aims to shapecommunity norms so much so that shared values are promoted atthe expense of individual values. This" dialogical inquiry betweenpress and public", as Tinder (1980: 189) writes, prompts strongreaction. Barney (1996: 145),for example, worries that a journalismwhich yields autonomy and independence to a community maybecome part of the majority power structure of that community.That is, loyalty becomes the price of acceptance and admission tothe community, with a subsequent, inevitable reliance oninformation and values that reinforce the status quo. Put anotherway, control of the news agenda rests with the dominantcommunity power structure.

Many journalists are not prepared to abandon thetraditional idea of objectivity, which requires them to disengagefrom all aspects of public life (Glasser and Craft, 1996:154; Hoyt,1995). Yet, what is presented as community journalism often bearslittle resemblance to the what was intended by some of thefounders. For example, many editors complain that communityjournalism in practice becomes simply a marketing tool to increaseratings or circulation, or a fad or gimmick designed to boost thenews bulletin or newspaper community profile. Thus, Channel Tennews in Sydney regularly features the" community" by includingtaped viewers' comments on the issues of the day (and the weatheris reported from the" community" using mobile satellitebroadcasts). This is an all-tao-familiar scene in America, as Hoyt's(1995) analysis in the Columbia Journalism Review demonstrates.Such gross distortions of "community" are fundamentally at oddswith Merritt's (1995) attempts to create a dialogue about socialissues between his community and his journalists at the WichitaEagle in Kansas.

Community journalism also requires a shift from a

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journalism of information to a journalism of conversation ordialogue (Carey, 1995),which many senior journalists and editorsfind unacceptable. Yet such distinctions need not be placed atextremes if the focus is shifted to the news and public agendas.

First, "objectivity", and the organisational constraints onjournalists, have long been the focus of research (eg: Durham, 1998;Gans, 1979) such that [[ objectivity" and "impartiality" areconstantly being re-defined in practice. Detachment is notdisinterest and need not imply that journalists do not care for thecommunity, as promoters of community journalism andopponents agree (Merritt &McMasters, 1996).Secondly, as Zelizer(1993) argues, journalists routinely generate [[ shared meanings'about journalism and how to interpret events.

Examination of these processes is common to journalismand community journalism, although Glasser and Craft (1996: 156­7) find it curious that community journalism promotesconversation and deliberation on virtually every topic butjournalism itself! They argue there is a need for communityjournalism to open itself to public scrutiny.

A critique of community journalism focused on who setsthe public agenda for conversation or dialogue offers a usefuldeparture point. As Glasser and Craft (1996) note, communityjournalism is ambivalent about its agenda-setting role.

Community journalism's most noted editor, Buzz Merrittat the Wichita Eagle, denies an agenda-setting role. In sharpcontrast, Charity (1995), in Doing Public Journalism, urgescommunity journalists to hear the public agenda. But Glasserand Craft (1996: 157) argue:

"Newspapers do have opinions, important ones, but theyare usually disguised as [news judgement,' which means,inexplicably, they do not belong out in the open and on theeditorial page. In other words, editorial pages have been for toolong a lost opportunity to identify, explain, and defend anewspaper's policies and priorities, especially policies andpriorities affecting newspaper coverage. Readers need to know- and newspapers ought to comply, proudly and prominently- why today's news is worthy of their attention. [[

Thus, it is argued here, community journalism needs topromote serious discussion of how the news agenda is createdand re-created within the community, in addition to focusing onobjectivity, detachment and news values. The agenda-settingtradition holds that thematic or personalised bias (Rucinski, 1992)differentially affects the salience of issues and, more recently, that

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audiences may also learn differentially the attributes of an issue(McCombs, et al, 1997). Thus, for example, news highlightsunemployed people, or the environmental disaster as an event, orthe woman with breast cancer, rather than examining the political,cultural and power relations underlying these 1/ stories'. Thesefindings, of course, run counter to community journalism'sobjectives.

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Community journalism, with its goal of promotingconversation and dialogue with communities, advocates the useof social science techniques such as opinion polling, deliberativepolling, focus groups and, sometimes, in-depth interviewing.These techniques are not new to journalism or journalismeducation.

Philip Meyer (1979) advocated, nearly twenty years ago,the extension of traditional reporting skills to embrace socialscience techniques. While his 1/ precision journalism' became ascommon as 1/ investigative reporting' in the language of Americanjournalism education, the influence on actual practice is less clear.Many journalism educators disagree with Meyer's heavy emphasison social science as science, and, by implication, precisionjournalism as a new objective journalism. Indeed, Meyer's (1992)revised text includes a passionate plea for science as the precisionin precision journalism. But his approach often neglectsexamination of the consequences of using social science methodsor the underlying values embedded in precision journalismpractice (see, for example, Blood, 1988).

Most precision journalism, at least in Australia, is passiveor reactive with news organisations forming commercial linkswith polling and market research companies. The standards ofdisclosure set by Meyer (1979; 1992) and Shaw et al, (1997) havenot always been followed (eg: Blood, 1988; Ward and Verrall, 1988)and guidelines promoted by the Australian Press Council arelargely ignored (Blood, 1992).

In contrast, a recent Sydney Morning Herald's front pageinvestigative story on child deaths (Bernoth & Murphy, 1998)signals a new trend. This story used previously unpublishedstatistical data to report on a major social issue about governmentcare of children at risk, reflecting considerable community concernover allegations of abuse of children while in government care.This type of "precision" journalism accords with communityjournalism's objectives; a view documented long ago by Weaverand McCombs (1980: 491). In an essay tracing the historical linksbetween social science and journalism, they noted a changing role

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for journalists: "... from rather passive transmitters of descriptionsof specific events in the'objective' era to more active truth seekersin the 'interpretive, investigative, public affairs,' and 'precisionjournalism' periods."

As Hoyt (1995) observes, community journalists of the19905 use a variety of research techniques, including a citizen panelregularly advising a Kansas newspaper, citizen examinations ofcrime in their communities, and America's National Public Radio's1994 election project, which included six major cities inpartnerships with broadcast news and involved 50 smallercommunities. The national, non-commercial broadcaster usedpolling data, extended citizen forums, and small-groupdiscussions and interviews to put the citizens' agenda at theforefront of political coverage. The experiment was repeated in1996. John Dinges, editorial director for the broadcaster, told theColumbia [ournalism Review (Hoyt, 1995: 30):

"We've never seen this as departing from traditionaljournalistic principles ... I see it in terms of framing the coverage ­aligning the journalistic priorities with the citizens' priorities. It'snot talk radio. When people talk to each other as citizens and forman opinion that's a different opinion from one that is not based ondialogue ... You definitely have to explore the inconsistencies,talk about the factual underpinnings, whether these are accurateor not. This is journalism: you don't just transmit things."

Fishkin (1995), a strong advocate of communityjournalism, promotes the use of deliberative polling; a departurefrom traditional press polling techniques and precision journalismas Meyer (1979) defines it. Traditional polling is useful, Fishkin(1995: 162) argues, but the results are not always the result ofinformed deliberations. Deliberative polling involves selecting arandom sample from a community, and arranging a face-to-facemeetings of those selected. At these meetings, community issuesare discussed, usually involving small-groups. Briefing papers areread and discussed and the opinions of others are often canvassed,including community leaders, politicians, lobby groups, industry/etc. The opportunity clearly exists for participants to define thecommunity agenda in their terms. At the end of these processes,a face-to-face poll is conducted on the issues.

The public opinion model proposed by Fishkin (1995)allows citizens' preferences and opinions to count equally in aprocess designed to represent the community. But the process;involving a significant number of people, allows competingarguments to be given careful consideration in small-group, face­to-face interactions. The process attempts to prevent one group'sviews being imposed on other groups; that is, it attempts topromote dialogue even when diametrically opposed opinions are

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at stake (Also see, Cunningham, 1996).As Fishkin (1995: 4) argues: "The public can best speak

for itself when it can gather together in some way to hear thearguments on the various sides of an issue and then, after face-to­face discussion, come to a collective decision." For example, incooperation with Britain's Cha1111el4, Fishkin conducted a televiseddeliberative poll in May 1994,and assisted with similar deliberativepolls for the American non-commercial Public Broadcasting Serviceduring the 1996 presidential election year.

In summary, the methods proposed for communityjournalism's objectives must involve a reflexive process whereopinions are canvassed, discussed and re-defined by communityaction. Community dialogue with journalists is paramount, incontrast to the" top-down' approach often used in precision andtraditional journalism. At issue is the sharp contrast betweencommunity journalism's call for journalists to hear the publicagenda, and journalism's power to shape (through issue framingand routine daily practice) the community agenda. These issuesinform our community journalism project now underway.

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It is not my aim to discuss the"results" of the communityjournalism project because the project is incomplete and resultsbelong first to the community. Rather, the aim is to focus on theinitial approach, the constraints and the problems we met. Adetailed critical analysis of the project is for the future. Our startingquestion was: what is the NSW central west's community agendaconcerning health and environmental issues during a period ofclaims and counter-claims by experts, and at a time when medicaland health services are under constant government cost pressures?

This question emerged from an analysis of focus groupsconducted for another project (Blood and Lee, 1997) where theinitial question invited people to discuss what they thought werethe main problems facing the region. Of particular interest wasthe way people discussed openly their confusion about health andmedical stories in newspaper and television reports. Claims andcounter claims about the effects of such hazards as electric ormagnetic fields emitted by mobile telephone transmission towers,pesticide residues, the depletion of the ozone layer, and passivesmoking were on peoples' minds. Cancer, and claims and counter­claims about the causes or risk factors associated with cancer, alsowere raised by group participants.

Regional news frames most health and environmentalhazards news in terms of events and announcements: agovernment report; a ministerial news release; a proposal for a

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new mobile telephone transmission tower; or the closure ofmedical facilities or hospital beds. Rarely if ever, does the regionalpress provide context, or delve beyond one expert's opinion orthe claims or assertions of lobby groups. Consistent with normaljournalistic practice, the community's awareness, knowledge,understandings (and confusion) or beliefs are not assessed orthought important. The project seeks to address this imbalancein news coverage and involves these factors and decisions.

Reflexivity, consistent with community journalism'objectives, guides the choice of methods. (See,for example, Tullochand Lupton, 1997: 7). Brown (1997:152) notes that: "Peoplerecognise their problems in light of other surrounding factors, andturn their individual troubles into social problems. Their socialconstructionist worldview shapes an understanding of personalsubjectivity that is at the same time larger than personalsubjectivity."

By studying how illness is socially constructed, weexamine how social forces shape our understanding of and actionstoward health, illness and healing. Thus, we sought first tovalidate (using survey research and in-depth interviewing) thebelief that several health and environmental hazards were onpeoples' minds.

The project, conducted as a final-year journalism classexercise, attempts to demonstrate to students the value andlimitations of community journalism's objectives, and theweaknesses of some precision journalism methods. Studentsparticipate in fieldwork and write news stories based on the datacollected, and other traditional sources. Selected student storieswill be presented to regional media with suggestions for involvingthe community, and health workers, in community dialogue.

Differences between the community's understandingsand concerns are contrasted with so called expert opinion: that is,the opinions of doctors, health workers and scientists. Thesedifferences between "lay" understandings and /I expert"understandings are clearly important, although they must betreated carefully. Kitzinger and Reilly (1997: 347) note:

"Which lay voice gains a hearing, which risks the mediaselect for attention and how they are presented, are far fromdemocratic. Cultural givens and the staffing and organization ofmedia outlets combined with the 'it could be you I it could be me'criteria of newsworthiness ensure that the media will bepredisposed to give more attention to some risks rather thanothers. Before anyone can be 'heard', a particular risk also has tobe recognized and promoted to the point where the threat seemsworth considering at all."

As a consequence, we (lecturer and students) initially

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positioned ourselves between community, /I experts", and regionalmedia. We deliberately chose not to invite local or regional newsmedia to participate because we wanted the freedom to explorethe health agenda in community terms. Subsequent work willinvolve the community, journalists, and their editors andpublishers with the goal of completing a deliberative poll and townmeetings, along the lines suggested by Fishkin (1995).

Toensure reliability and validity of measures in our survey,we replicated studies on health and perceptions of breast cancerrisk factors completed by Harvard University's Center for RiskAnalysis (Graham, Clements and Glass, 1996). This enabledadequate pre-testing of the questionnaire before students startedthe semester, and allowed preparation time for scheduling the in­depth interviews.

The survey comprised five sections: measures of the mostimportant health problem facing the NSW central west, and whatpeople were talking about; measures of whether people thought alist of health and environmental hazards actually existed (asdistinct from whether they thought they were important); a seriesof questions on breast cancer risk factors and whether peoplethought they existed; sources of information people go to aboutthese issues; and demographics.

About 400 people in the region were interviewed.Households were selected using a random-digit diallingprocedure, with respondents within each household selectedrandomly. Participants in the in-depth interviews were selectedacross three age groups: 20 year-old; 30 to 50 year old, and morethan 60 years-old, and across gender. 18 interviews of about anhour each are being completed.

Specifically, perceptions and understandings of breastcancer risk factors were included because of media prominencegiven to the disease and its treatment, and the conflictinginformation given to women in media news reports. Other hazardscovered by local and regional news media included: electric andmagnetic fields emitted from large power lines; lead found in thepaint in older houses; electric and magnetic fields emitted frommobile telephone towers, and from the telephones themselves;pesticide residues that remain on fruit and vegetables; uncleanair-conditioning units in office buildings and shopping centres;side effects of children's immunisation vaccines; passive smoking;fluoride in town water supplies. The in-depth interviews cover asimilar list of items covered in the survey but allow considerableflexibility to probe and elaborate responses.

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The project's logistics, involving 93 students supervised by Conclusionfour honours students, is ambitious. To date, we make theseobservations:

• The semester time constraint reinforces the need forpreparation before students begin the class. This means studentsare not involved in question formation or pre-testing for the survey.For survey research, the questionnaire and sampling design mustbe complete.

• Training for survey interviewing can enhance lectures andtutorials on journalism research. Highlighting biases that emergefrom the interviewer, respondent, and interviewer-respondentinteraction, reinforces a critical awareness of the limitations ofpolling. A report to the class from students after interviewing isessentiaL

• Training for in-depth, longer interviews can be problematicand should not be confined to the semester in which the project iscompleted. Analysing these interviews (and transcription) requiresconsiderable lecturer and tutor input.

• Using any introduction in an interview that includesstudent identification will increase non-response rates. Useuniversity researcher instead.

• Most students will gain hands-on experience with thelimitations and constraints of survey research and in-depthinterviewing; questions and issues they will, hopefully, take intoprofessional practice

• If you start the project with local, regional or metropolitanmedia as a partner, you may need considerable time in which toexplain, elaborate and negotiate a satisfactory position forcommunity journalism's objectives. Beware of media using whatyou are attempting as a marketing ploy.

• Ensure that students understand the project is a researchprocess. By process, we constantly adjust our initial researchquestions and positions in line with the community's opinions andpositions. For example, initial responses to our open-endedquestions about what health issues people thought importantimmediately alerted us to concerns about other types of cancer,heart disease and asthma; issues initially not thought thatimportant. Our focus on breast cancer risk factors should havebeen complemented by questions about these concerns.

Students do learn invaluable insights, beyond the project'sobjectives, into how other groups in society view the topics of theproject, and their involvement. For example, our initial data revealconsiderable unrest, particularly among the elderly, about whatthey perceive as the downgrading of health services in the area

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and they wanted to know what students thought.Students' relationship with me, and the subject

requirement of completing five interviews, their perceptions of theproject and its usefulness, emerged as issues of discussion and,sometimes, contention. Their limited training and the quickturnaround of interviews were also issues in class, as was theverification procedure. Interviews were verified (re-contactingsample households) by honours research students. These issueswere discussed in the context of students' future use and relianceof surveyor polling data as journalists.

Finally, in retrospect, more attention should be focusedon involving students in the longer-term objectives of the project,particularly in terms of how their contribution fits with the goalsof community journalism, research conducted in a reflexiveframework/ and journalism as communication.

Willany of what we are doing make a difference, especiallynow as we begin talking to regional news media? Buzz Merritt(1995: 124) in the final line of Public Journalism and Public Life askshimself a similar question and writes: "But talk to me in ten years" .We will not need that long.•

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R. WARWICK BLOOD, Ph.D. is Associate Professor of Journalism,School of Communication, Charles Sturt University - Bathurst. Theauthor acknowledges the assistance of Kitty Eggerking, Lecturer inPrint Journalism; Anne Dunn, Senior Lecturer in Broadcasting; the1998 honours class and students enrolled in Journalism Research atCharles Sturt University; and Susan Blood, Medical Librarian atOrange Base Hospital, in completingthe project.(Email: wblood@Csu.edu.au)

128 AsiaPacific Medialiducatot; Issue No.4, Jan-June 1998