Book Review: Public Journalism 2.0: The Promise and Reality of a Citizen-Engaged Press, edited by Jack Rosenberry and Burton St. John III

Public Journalism 2.0: The Promise and Reality of a Citizen-Engaged Press. Jack Rosenberry and Burton St. John III, Eds. New York: Routledge, 2010. 199 pp. $45.95 pbk.Digital technology has changed journalism dramatically. Through a collection of research studies, essays, case studies, and interviews, Public Journalism 2.0 takes a detailed look at evolving public journalism and where audience-generated stories fit into that evolution. The editors divide the book into three sections: the history of civic and citizen journalism, current practices, and future possibilities. They conclude with their views of where professionals fit in to a citizen-engaged press.The book's strength is its diverse content from different authors, whose chapters give the book a rich mix of examples and perspectives. Although this also means different styles from chapter to chapter, the collection is tied together well. Summaries at the end of each chapter include bulleted lists of theoretical implications, practical implications, and reflection questions. Each major section also includes an interview offering insight from scholars on public journalism.A common theme holds the book's diverse content together. The editors-Rosenberry teaches at St. John Fisher College in Rochester, New York, and St. John teaches at Old Dominion in Norfolk, Virginia-detail how public journalism can build a citizenengaged press and improve public discourse. The book showcases many different roles for both amateur and professional journalists. Different approaches define news differently and include many views on journalists' gatekeeping functions. The picture Public Journalism 2.0 paints is not all rosy, but it is realistic. In many cases, examples reinforce the difficulty in keeping people engaged in citizen journalism efforts. Many times, it is a struggle to keep volunteers involved or to obtain citizen contributions.The book traces citizen journalism to the early 1990s. Although that may seem like recent history, it's a lifetime in terms of the changes that have taken place in journalism's digital age. The editors begin with a 1990 talk by James Batten, then-CEO of Knight-Ridder, at the University of Kansas. Batten's theme: "Newspapers that immerse themselves in the lives of their communities, large or small, have the best prospects for success in the years ahead." Just a decade later, the Internet had upended everything, as Davis "Buzz" Merritt, former editor of the Wichita Eagle and one of the pioneers of civic journalism, notes. "By the end of the century, few journalism organizations could indulge in the expense and risk of the experimentation that public journalism required," he says, concluding, "At some point, traditional newspapers will disappear. …