The new evangelists of public journalism take great satisfaction in regularly denouncing the traditional news media for "framing stories" in a "bi-polar," "us against them" style of reporting that distorts reality.

Mainstream journalists cannot help themselves because they have been "reflexively conditioned" to see "conflict as the highest coin in the journalistic realm," according to Davis "Buzz" Merritt, author of "Public Journalism & Public Life: Why Telling The News Isn't Enough."

Despite their denunciations, public journalism's partisans go into the same reactionary mode when defending their movement against critics. They frame the controversy as a battle between the elitist newspapers of Washington or New York and the more pragmatic, civic-minded newspapers of America's heartland -- Colorado Springs, Dayton, Wichita, Sioux City and now St. Louis with the arrival of practitioner Cole Campbell as St. Louis Post-Dispatch editor.

One of the most recent "us against them" commentaries was penned by Jan Schaffer for Quill, the magazine of the Society of Professional Journalists. Schaffer is deputy director of the Pew Center for Civic Journalism. Schaffer once again framed the battle over public journalism as a sort of populist struggle between an elitist, big-city press and the rest of the civic-minded journalists out in the provinces.

Schaffer quotes Gil Thelen, editor of The State in Columbia, South Carolina, who laments the attitudes of writers and editors at the Washington Post, The New York Times, the New Yorker magazine and The Wall Street Journal. She describes Thelen as "steamed and irritated" at the elite press' resistance to public journalism.

"What's really hurting this (public journalism) is the way the elite press is smashing around anything that smacks of experimentation," notes Thelen in the Quill article. Thelen argues that elite publications have been able to set the standards, framework and values of journalism for too long.

"And a lot of the people in my newsroom want to work for them," adds a disappointed Thelen. "Everybody defers to them. Maybe that's the source of resistance (to public journalism)."

Thelen adds that papers like The New York Times can afford to be smug and resistant to change. The Times can afford its elite audience with only 25 percent penetration in its base city, but most newspapers don't have that luxury, Thelen emphasizes.

"...In the elite conversation, there can be all of the sanctimoniousness about the extreme separation of church and state (newspaper and community) and an exaggerated kind of independence of action and folderol about voting that prejudices my objectivity. That isn't the kind of bullshit that plays with regular people," Schaffer quotes Thelen. "Regular people view and experience the world differently from regular readers of The New York Times."

There's no dearth of examples of public journalism proponents framing the battle over public journalism as an "us against them," "the civic-minded vs. elitists."

Consider these observations:

"Look where the criticism (of public journalism) is coming from. It's coming from the stewards of current convention, the Eastern establishment press -- The New York Times, the Washington Post," Cole Campbell told the St. Louis Journalism Review in March. "These people say, in essence, we are the definers of what are the proper conventions. Who are these people in Wichita, Kansas; Charlotte, North Carolina; Norfolk, Virginia? Who are these people? It has almost as much to do with class and status as it does with ideas."

"From where I sit, it seems as if public journalism is being victimized by the media elite," declared Steve Smith in the January 1997 issue of Civic Catalyst. "...the big guns from Washington, New York and Boston -- and the big gun wannabees -- are the folks who have targeted journalists like me, and like you ... I don't know how to define civic (public) journalism for a national newspaper like The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal or the Washington Post. As far as I'm concerned, how or even whether these concepts are embraced by Times, Journal or Post editors is their affair."

"I think it hurts our business when we only look to those rather unusual publications (The New York Times, theWashington Post) with their specialized audiences and let them influence what flies for the rest of us," Boston Globe Editor Matthew V. Storin told a public journalism awards dinner in 1996. "In the eyes of some critics in those two cities, public journalism is the most dangerous thing to hit our business since establishment papers began quoting the National Enquirer.

"Now, of course, I don't challenge their right to offer criticism," added Storin. "I just don't think everyone should jump off a bridge just because two mammoth, 18-wheelers are rolling over it at the same time."

Vilifying the media elite
Not since Spiro Agnew, henchman and vice president for Richard Nixon's administration, have there been so many denunciations of the media elite, the journalistic values of New York and Washington, D.C., and the ways of the Eastern establishment press.

It seems rather bizarre to hear other journalists picking up where Agnew left off, chastising the elite media outlets for being out of touch with real people -- Nixon and Agnew's disenchanted "silent majority." Apparently the oddity of this turn of events escapes the public journalism advocates, as they rail against the bogeyman of the "media elite" every time their reporting experiments in the provinces come in for criticism.

No matter how much Nixon and Agnew blamed their problems on the media elite, it was not sufficient to divert attention from their own venality and corruption. While the sins of public journalism have nothing in common with the antics of Nixon and Agnew, the protests of the public journalists against the "media elite" can only serve to invite the comparison.

And no matter how many times public journalism advocates dismiss their critics as the "stewards of current convention" and the so-called "big gun wannabees," their protests cannot mask the widespread uneasiness among reporters and editors nationwide regarding their new press philosophy and their journalistic experiments.

That uneasiness is not confined to the "media elite." And the controversy over public journalism is not simply a battle between the nattering nabobs of negativism at The New York Times and the Washington Post and the more civic-minded newspaper editors and reporters in the heartland.

A recent survey conducted by the St. Louis Journalism Review/Webster University School of Communications (SJR/WU) reveals that the public journalists have created a false dichotomy.

In fact, the SJR/WU survey reveals strong disagreement among mid-sized and smaller dailies as to whether public journalism is a good thing. Some of the toughest criticism of public journalism practices comes from newspapers in the heartland. In the SJR/WU survey of daily newspaper editors, somewhat more than half of the respondents indicated that they thought public journalism is good for the profession. The other half were either "not sure" or thought that public journalism is a "bad idea" for the practice of journalism.

Many of the editors opposed to the idea come from mid-sized to small dailies, and not from major urban centers or what might be termed as elite journalism publications.

"I see public journalism as a 'back to grassroots' movement by big city papers to try to win back lost readers," said respondent Ava Betz, editor of the Lamar Daily News in Lamar, Colo. "But at small newspapers, we never moved away from the public. Our readers grab us in the grocery store and on the sidewalk. We've always been in touch, we don't need a movement.

"I have misgivings about what public journalism says can go on the front page," added Betz. "I think editorializing in favor of civic projects doesn't belong on the front page. That stuff belongs on the editorial page."

Betz said she is also concerned about the trend toward foundations funding public journalism projects for newspapers and their reporters.

"I worry about what strings would be attached to getting the foundation money," said Betz. "I do know that if somebody wanted to give me money to cover some projects that I think need covering, I would be tempted. But aren't there always strings attached?"

Phil Willis, editor of the Athens News Courier in Athens, Ala., echoed Betz's concern regarding the influence of foundation money in the newsroom.

"I would never encourage my reporters to get a grant from a foundation to help them do their reporting," said Willis. "I think foundations like the Freedom Forum, with its First Amendment Center in Nashville, offer reporters some good programs and information. But I wouldn't want a foundation funding our reporting projects.

"I have concerns about papers sponsoring civic studies and projects to better the community," added Willis. "I worked at a paper that sponsored an adult spelling bee to encourage adult literacy. I don't have a problem with that. But anything that gets into serious political issues we should cover, not sponsor."

Public journalism advocates insist that traditional journalists worry too much about "the proper separations" and not enough about "the proper connections." This constant concern about conflict-of-interest, according to public journalists, makes citizens think newspapers are aloof and uncaring about community concerns.

"I think we have to be concerned about conflict-of-interest, both real and perceived," said editor Alan Blanchard of the Daily News in Greenville, Mich. "I just recently was asked to serve on the Coalition for a Greater Greenville. I told them that the newspaper would be happy to cover it, but our role is to report the news and to not be a part of making it. It will hurt us with our readers if they think we've already got an agenda when we're covering these things. They'll say: 'Why bother, we know what they're going to have to say.'

"These civic groups are telling me now: 'Why aren't you getting behind us? We know that other newspapers in other towns are getting on the bandwagon and helping their communities.' That's what bothers me about public journalism," said Blanchard. "It is having an effect on changing people's perceptions about what a newspaper is supposed to do."

Denny Bonavita, editor with the Courier Express, which publishes daily in Dubois, Pa., said public journalism has yet to answer a fundamental question: "Who elected us?" Who elected the newspaper to sort out and to find solutions to public policy questions?

"Some of us have spent 30 years covering boards and civic groups, and we know they don't always function effectively. I think this has inspired some editors to think the newspapers should get involved, because they know how to do it better," said Bonavita. "That's wrong. That's not our job. Our job is to try to tell the news and that's hard enough.

"We're dealing with an issue of the merger of the city and the township, and we have supported it very strongly on the editorial page," said Bonavita. "But we wouldn't get behind this public journalism style on the front page, because I think we would be disposed to not cover anything negative about the merger brought up at the public hearings and meetings."

More survey results
In the SJR/WU survey of newspaper editors, respondents were evenly divided on a series of questions asking them why they thought public journalism might be a good idea for the profession.

Forty-nine percent of editors think that public journalism is a good idea because it will improve the practice of journalism with new approaches. Fifty-one percent disagreed.

Forty-six percent of editors think that public journalism is a good idea because it will convince people that journalists care about their communities. Fifty-four percent of the editors disagreed.

Fifty percent of editors think that public journalism is a good idea because it will improve people's lives by offering solutions to problems. Fifty percent of the editors disagreed.

In the SJR/WU survey of newspaper editors, results were more lopsided when respondents were asked a series of questions on why they thought public journalism might be a bad idea for the profession.

Twenty-three percent of editors think that public journalism is a bad idea because government may have more justification to try to control the press. Seventy-seven percent disagreed.

Sixty percent of editors think that public journalism is a bad idea because people will see the press as biased. Forty percent disagreed.

Seventy-one percent of editors think that public journalism is a bad idea because the press may be corrupted by special interests if it gets involved as an actor in the political issues of the day. Twenty-nine percent disagreed.

Once again, the SJR/WU survey reveals strong disagreement among newspaper editors as to whether public journalism is good or bad as a press practice. And a breakdown of survey respondents clearly shows that the controversy over public journalism is not simply a fight between the "elitist" press of Washington and New York and the more civic-minded newspapers of the American heartland.

Public journalism elite vs. Hoosiers
"Public journalism advocates are trying to change the nature of the debate by criticizing The New York Times and the Washington Post," said Craig Klugman, editor of the Journal Gazette in Fort Wayne, Ind. "It's demagoguery to beat up on The Times and The Post and to portray them as the great enemy of their public journalism.

"It makes no sense to demonize two great journalistic enterprises. I'm tired of it," said Klugman. "You could take some very good New York Times and Washington Post projects that could easily fall into certain categories of public journalism. I'd prefer to just call it 'good journalism.' I am not against solution-oriented journalism. For Christ's sake, I think that's rudimentary to journalism. I am concerned about what happens when newspapers decide to become a player in events."

Klugman cited a public journalism project by another Indiana newspaper which decided to sponsor events to encourage better race relations. He said the paper was prompted to take the action after a Ku Klux Klan march in the area.

According to Klugman, the paper sponsored community forums in which a sizable number of blacks advocated black separatism. They were not interested in fostering inter-racial cooperation for the good of the community.

"When I asked the editor why all the talk of separatism was not mentioned in the paper's coverage, she said she didn't know," related Klugman. "Well, I know why it wasn't covered. It wasn't consistent with the good intentions of the newspaper's public journalism project. It's tough to cover something impartially when your newspaper is part of the story."

An outspoken critic of public journalism, Klugman said he always runs the risk that advocates will tell him that it's unfair to criticize an idea or a project, because "it's not really public journalism" -- even though the project or idea was originally labeled as public journalism.

"A major criticism I have with public journalists is that they change how they define themselves and what they're about," said Klugman. "And I'm sick and tired of hearing them cry that they're not reported correctly. I think most of the critiques that I have read have been fair and correct."

Steve Gray, editor of the Monroe Evening News in Monroe, Mich., said he's not only troubled by the definition of public journalism, he said the whole premise for how public journalism is going to bring back more readers to newspapers is wrong.

"Public journalism doesn't address the real reasons for the declining interest in newspapers," said Gray. "It only perpetuates the press's myopic obsession with 'public affairs' as the primary interest of our readers. The press needs to address the whole appetite for information. We need to expand the definition of news."

While the definition of what makes news may need to be expanded, Lon Slepicka of the Prince Georges Daily Journal in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., is one of many editors who distrusts the methods used by public journalism to find out what the news should be.

"Two things that really bother me are the use of focus groups, surveys and outside editorial boards to determine our news judgement," said Slepicka. "I think we're trained news professionals and have some expertise about what issues deserve public attention.

"The other problem I have is with this whole 'good news vs. bad news' complaint by public journalists -- that we cover the negative," said Slepicka. "Prince Georges has a lot of crime and we cover it. Some of our readers complain about it, but I think if you take crime off the front page, you do a disservice to readers who may not take the precautions that they need to."

Norman Baggs, who edits the Gwinnett Daily Post in Lawrenceville, Ga., is another editor who has difficulty with the definition of public journalism.

"What the hell is public journalism? For that matter, what the hell is private journalism? I can't conceive of what these people are talking about," said Baggs. "To me, all journalism is public. I think this is all for a bunch of academic-minded people with high ideals who haven't run a newspaper for years.

"I work for a living," added Baggs. "Newspapers are not brain surgery. We don't have to make social science out of this. It doesn't take that much to go out of the newspaper office and find out what people are thinking."

Baggs said he is disturbed that, under public journalism, foundations are getting into the newsroom and paying for reporting projects. He said newspapers should pay their own way for their reporting.

Baggs' protest over foundations helping to pay for news coverage is also a major concern of Klugman at Fort Wayne's Journal Gazette.

"I've heard Ed Fouhy of the Pew Center make a defense of this practice by saying we're not really talking about that much money," said Klugman. "That's outrageous. Fouhy said we're talking about small potatoes -- maybe $25,000 here or there. Talk about elitist! I work at one of the bigger newspapers in Indiana, and $25,000 would not be small potatoes in our newsroom.

"The amount of money is not the main issue, though," said Klugman. "The main issue really is: Why do newspapers need foundations to cover the news? And, why do newspapers want to become part of the news instead of covering it?"