The History and Civic Journalism

We can date journalism back from the 14th century when the first presses were created and the bible was made available to everyone. Then moving to the 15th century we could find the first periodicals available to the people. The news papers were used more as a medium between the governments and the public, we could say they were used as translators for the general public and the policy making groups. This idea of journalism was developed from Walter Lippmann and in a way it lead to what we called democratic journalism. But in any case journalism is used for that, to inform, and that is why journalism must remain unbiased. This is where the loyalty of journalism comes into place. Journalists are providing a service to the community and in order to provide the best service they need to get the right information, this is why the need to dig in to find the truth, gather the facts and use the necessary tools to pass on accurate information to the public. Journalists have the responsibility to ensure that their sources are correct and their reports covered both sides of a story.

Civic journalism comes into place were the public is no longer a spectator in a social process but readers become participants as well as journalists. Nowadays civic journalism is also seen as a philosophy of journalism and the way this works is creating a sort of forum were the ideas and opinions of the stories can flow freely. This civic journalism projects are associated by many with the opinion sectors of a newspaper. I think that civic journalism can enhance the work that journalist do for society but it can be a double edge sword when they become too involved with an issue and they stop informing about both sides a story giving only their personal opinion because at that point the truth could be manipulated. Even if with the technological advances and the globalization we can easily find both sides of a story we don’t have the time to gather and all that information, this is why we entrust journalist with this task and we expect them to respect that confidence that is put on them.