Public Journalism

Good public journalism is key to maintaining a true democratic debate, where citizens are informed and interested in the issue at hand. In an article by Philip Meyer, called "Public Journalism and the Problem with Objectivity" there is a set of goals in which public journalism aspires to achieve. "Their purpose is to focus the watchdog's effort in a time of information overload."
With this in mind, some of the elements are as follows:
-Public journalism should rebuild a community's sense of self
-Public journalism should stay with a specific issue until all aspects are carried out to inform the citizens
-Public journalism should deeply explain the systems that influence people rather than focus on topical aspects/events
-Public journalism should give respectable attention to the middle ground of issues as opposed to extremes
-Public journalism should favor substance over tactics in regards to political arguments
-Public journalism should encourage the community to understand and respond to issues

By abiding by the above goals of public journalism, citizens can gain an optimal perspective of what is going on within the community, nation, and world.
Our rainforest blog has attempted to achieve this public journalism ideal, to better inform those who are interested in the idea of having a large-scale rainforest in the city of Coralville. The situation is still on debate, as funds have not yet been achieved, so the site can be found very useful for those who have stake in the issue or care to offer support or opinion. With that said, we hope that what ever comes out of the debate is in the citizen's and state's best interest. Of course there are both pros and cons that need to be wieghed, which is why we find it so important to clearly lay out the issue, with out holding back any information or viewpoints.
Public journalism at its best is an incredible advantage for an issue to have, so hopefully people will look to this site when interested in learning more about the Iowa rainforest project.

The rainforest project seems to be at a stand still as they are looking for more private contributers. All government funds have been put on hold until the project matches the grantee money through private donations. There have only been two significant private donations and that was ten million dollars by the man who had the original idea and then there is an electric company who also donated another ten million dollars as long as they were to power the facility. Since these two donations no one else has stepped forward. Is this a sign that not enough people care about this place to even make it successful? When most people in the area hear about it they find it as the biggest waste of money. And in our online poll on this website it shows mixed emotions. How much longer will the government wait before pulling our funding?

http://www.nicholasjohnson.org/politics/IaChild/#Cost%20Overruns.

Today is the last day that this site will have postings, and now would be a great time to decipher the effectivity. As blog site administrator, it was my primary duty to observe our website and attempt to engage an audience in our 'small' attempt at democracy. Although our blog may not continue near the amount of comments that one should, the comments that were made brought up valid arguments as well as creative discussion. They were not mere attempts to 'get as many comments as possible from friends' but were instead individuals attempting to discuss the issue and how it relates. The contributors of this site did a great job of engaging these few commentors by answering each comment and engaging in a discussion with these individuals.

This site was only running for 3 weeks; it is difficult to cultivate an genuine audience in such a short amount of time. Attempts were made, such as placing the blog within blog search engines (3 to be specific), emailing other individuals with blogsites pertaining to our issue, asking people to link our site with theirs, etc... However, it is difficult to provide a valid argument as to why our site is a valid site to link to in the sense that our topic was not just concerning the rainforest but was also meant to look at all aspects of the media and how the media is covering this topic.

Unfortunately, because this was a class project, many blogsites were not willing to link our to theirs because of the fact that after 3 weeks this site would no longer be posting as well as the fact that, these bloggers did not believe our intention was genuine. I have received many emails complimenting this site and how it is set up--claiming that it is 'user-friendly' and 'very well designed'. Does this mean that it was effective?

I believe that this website fulfilled what it claimed to be its objective: to fairly evaluate the Coralville rain forest proposal. We as a group offer this site in the belief the public has an enormous stake in the project however it may come out, and that it is useful to give the public, media, and government officials the access to as much factual information as possible, along with the range of opinion the project has generated.

The contributors to this site may have an opinion regarding this issue; however, in general I believe that this site evaluated the issue from a fair and objective stance. Contributors scanned the media and reported what was either being covered, not beingcovered, effective, or updating what was going on. Each individual took on a role and presented valuable information regarding this role. It was an effective attempt of informing and engaging the public... for the small amount of time it was running.

For those of you who engaged in this topic and visited this site often... thank-you!

One of the most recent headlines surrounding the rainforest project concerns money issues. Senator Grassley has promised to give the original 50 million dollars for this project, but first , an additional 50 million dollars will have to be raised privately (non-federal money). Sen. Grassley approved this legislation stating that "I want this project to succeed because it's a big opportunity for Iowans from start to finish. It was originally designed to clean up an old 30-acre Brownfield land site. Its construction will create jobs. When finished, it will be a tourist destination and a leading environmental education center," Grassley said in a press release. "However, the project will never become a reality if the majority of the funding isn't raised from private benefactors and other sources. Until the project can demonstrate its ability to raise that money, I can't let federal tax dollars be frittered away."(Press-Citizen, 11/9/05). The media is always on alert when these new advances come through. This is especially important, because it makes the organization accountable for raising its own money as well as the government, since it is such a big pork barrel project.

http://www.press-citizen.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051109/NEWS01/51109009&SearchID=73226948459466