Abstract

With lost credibility, ratings, and circulation, journalism faces a crisis of conscience. One answer is participatory community journalism; journalists become activists on behalfofthe process of self-government. A veteran journalist and author of Agents of Power, Altschull questions the press's arrogance, its faith in objectivity, and its unvarying insistence on its First Amendment rights, and asks instead that the public interest be put ahead of the maximization of profit, that media help to mediate public issues, and that the public be allowed to play a bigger role in the news decision making process