not surprise us that precision in categorizing is difficult. Journalism is too complex an area to be divided neatly into kinds of journalism. Differences are matters of degree, and different kinds of journalism combine values in various ways. The continuum is a map of a complex terrain. The aim of the continuum is not precision in placement but to show how kinds of journalism can be roughly grouped into three categories of moral ideology.
Second, the differences between the kinds of journalism are matters of degree. Generally speaking, as one moves from left to right, we move from a journalism that is more invested in acting as a public spectator and sticking close to the “shoreline” of available facts, than in venturing out into the choppy waters of political opinion and advocacy. There is a greater degree of strict factual accuracy and pre-publication verification. As we approach the right-handed pole, there are greater amounts of hypothesizing, speculating, and theorizing. Journalists are also more active in the public sphere.
Third, the continuum helps to highlight misconceptions. For example, the continuum shows that all three forms of journalism have goals and values. Disengaged journalism, such as neutral reporting, has its own goals. The ethical point of adopting the disengaged model is to provide the public with a relativity unbiased stream of factual information. This stream of information is important because it helps to create an informed democracy. However, disengaged journalism has not always stressed that it too has goals and is engaged in society. In fact, the ideology has often implied that neutral reporters are not engaged at all. In this view, to be “engaged” was to be a political partisan or a social activist. Journalists are not, or should not be, engaged.
Fourth and finally, the continuum reminds us that certain kinds of journalism may combine norms from the three categories. For example, investigative journalists combine disengaged journalism’s stress on facts with engaged journalism’s stress on stories that prompt reform.
Section 2: Democratically Engaged Journalism
We can now approach two key questions: What is the idea of democratically engaged journalism? Where does it fit on the continuum?
The Idea
Democratically engaged journalism is journalism that uses the most rigorous and objective methods of inquiry to explain, promote, and defend democratic communities for the sake of greater flourishing among citizens, individually and as a whole. The moral ideology of democratically engaged journalism can be broken down into two large pieces: one is its ultimate goal; the other is the method or stance by which it pursues this goal.
Ultimate Goal: Dialogic Democracy
Journalists can be engaged in ways that are positive or negative, responsible or irresponsible. So, we face a choice in forms of engagement.
For democratically engaged journalism, the goal is the promotion of democracy. But there are many forms of democracy—representational, republican, parliamentary, elitist, populist, participatory.20 Democratically engaged journalism does not support all these forms. For instance, it should not support a populist democracy where demagogues use media to portray themselves as “strong” men of the people; and it should not support an elitist form of democracy marked by great inequalities.
In my view, democratically engaged journalism should support a representational, liberal democracy that is plural and egalitarian. It is open and participatory in impulse and structure, with constitutional protection for minorities from the tyranny of majorities. As Dewey argued, this form of democracy is a precondition for the richest kind of communal life and human flourishing.21
Plural, egalitarian democracy is grounded in the rule of law, division of powers, public-directed and transparent government, and core liberties for all. The process of plural democracy is robust, knowledge-based, respectful dialog, a willingness to compromise for the common good, and a readiness to test (and modify) one’s partial view of the world.22 I call this dialogic democracy. It is important that people have a meaningful opportunity to participate in crucial decisions. Yet, how they participate is also crucial. Dialogic democracy requires moderate, informed exchanges of information and views not dominated by powerful interests or intolerant voices. Dialog promotes what Rawls called a “reasonable pluralism,” a reasonable discourse among groups with different values and philosophies of life.23 Dialogic democracy is an ideal. It is valuable as a target at which to aim.
How does journalism help democratic publics exist? By influencing the flow and quality of communication in a democracy’s public sphere. Journalism can help societies make the often-difficult assent to better forms of democracy, characterized by tolerance and equality. Or, journalism can encourage intolerant communication which sends democracy into a downward spiral to discordant society.
Promoting dialogic democracy requires much more than disengaged, neutral reporting. It requires journalistic engagement in democracy. Among the tasks of democratically engaged journalism is monitoring and alerting the public to leaders or groups that could undermine a democratic “concord” among groups.
To face our troubled public sphere, journalists could “double down” on neutrally reporting just the facts, such as quoting accurately what leaders like Donald Trump say in public; or sticking unswervingly to balanced reports on crucial issues, such as immigration or climate change, where voices for non-credible and intolerant views are given equal space with credible and tolerant views. Or, journalists could become engaged as partisan activists, identifying with, and becoming mouthpieces for, specific political parties or leaders. Perhaps they might join protesters marching in the streets.
Adopting Either Option Would Be a Mistake
If journalists join the protesters, this engagement would erode media credibility and contribute to an already partisan-soaked media sphere. Yet a journalism of just the (alleged) facts, studiously balanced, is too passive and ripe for manipulation. In a partisan public sphere, what is a fact is up for debate. Democratically engaged journalism lays between partisan advocacy and mincing neutrality. It is not a neutral spectator or a channel of information that merely repeats people’s alleged facts or racist views. When important social and democratic issues are raised, democratically engaged journalism critically evaluates sources and claims, and operates with a clear notion of the goal of democratic media.
Journalism cannot avoid involvement in the political sphere. One reason is this: as the politics of a country goes, so goes the flourishing of its citizens. If a nation becomes a tyranny, the citizens suffer. So, journalists have a duty to critique and evaluate what happens in the political sphere. Another reason is this: As democracy goes, so goes journalism. Where democracy weakens, democratic protections of freedom of speech and publication weaken. Journalists have a vested interest in maintaining a free and democratic nation.
The Method
Democratically engaged journalism is distinct in its attachment to dialogic, egalitarian democracy. It is also distinct in combining that attachment with a commitment to objective methods in practice. Democratic journalists should guide their actions and work by the best standards of objective inquiry. They should be objectively engaged journalists.
This is not the narrow objectivity of the codes of professional journalism created a century ago. Objectivity is not the passive, un-interpreted observation of external facts. Humans possess no such capacity for observing pure facts. Moreover, neutrality is not the best stance for a social engaged practice like journalism. Any significant piece of journalism—in fact, any story—is an interpretation of some person, place, event, or issue. It mixes facts, perspective, judgments about credible sources, and the evaluation of rival opinions. It requires the selection of story “angle” and emphasis. The very language one uses to tell the story reflects perspective and judgment.
Moreover, the evaluation of interpretations is different from neutrally stripping stories down to bare facts. It requires a holistic set of criteria for evaluating to what degree a story (a) fits reality, (b) is coherent with existing knowledge,