A participatory democracy necessarily minimizes legal restraints on its citizens, substituting, for the common good, moral obligations to contribute with their activities. This article argues that a democratic society is endangered unless both media and citizens accept reciprocal moral obligations related to the distribution and use of information. Journalists are expected to facilitate distribution of information and engage citizens usefully in the knowledge process, fueling the participatory engine that drives a democracy. Citizens, in return, have a reciprocal obligation to expose (...) themselves to useful information, respond publicly, tolerate (and even encourage) diversity, and protect media autonomy. (shrink)

This study begins with the question of whether the press is conveying messages that help readers in their moral development. Using a Kohlbergian model, this study explores the question by analyzing the moral language in columns and letters to the editor from three Oregon newspapers. The study's content analysis reveals that most arguments presented in the opinion section of the three papers are done so at either Kohlberg's preconventional or conventional levels.

On the morning of May 26, 2004, New York Times readers found a note from the paper’s editors on Page A10. The headline read “From the Editors—The Times and Iraq,” and the 1,000-word article that followed served as a disclosure that the Times had failed in its duty of both aggressive information gathering and careful reporting with a critical eye. Response to the note was fast and widespread as newspeople across the country commented on the paper’s public admission of its (...) flawed coverage. The editors’ note, together with the responses it generated, provides a glimpse into the state of American journalism and the way those enmeshed in it understand and expect the practice to operate. Beyond serving a descriptive purpose, however, the texts can be used to start a discourse in the normative realm, to offer suggestions for how our understanding of journalism perhaps ought to change to better reflect the reality of what is truly a human institution. This paper provides both a descriptive and normative analysis of themes that emerge from the case, and it prompts both journalists and citizens to reflect on the practice and then continue moving forward through a landscape in constant flux. (shrink)

In April 2002, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for a series of columns he wrote in the months following September 11. On the surface, the columns seemed to fit Cummins Gauthier’s criteria for public grieving: they engaged readers emotionally; they empathized with victims and survivors; and they helped readers develop moral attitudes, opinions and responses. However, in analyzing the columns from a feminist ethic of care perspective—one that expands the boundaries of the moral community (...) beyond the borders of a nation-state—one finds that Friedman’s columns can distort the process of public grieving, leading citizens toward anger and an “us” verus “them” mentality rather than healing and a genuine concern that embraces the value of all human beings. (shrink)

In April 2002, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for a series of columns he wrote in the months following September 11. On the surface, the columns seemed to fit Cummins Gauthier’s criteria for public grieving: they engaged readers emotionally; they empathized with victims and survivors; and they helped readers develop moral attitudes, opinions and responses. However, in analyzing the columns from a feminist ethic of care perspective—one that expands the boundaries of the moral community (...) beyond the borders of a nation-state—one finds that Friedman’s columns can distort the process of public grieving, leading citizens toward anger and an “us” verus “them” mentality rather than healing and a genuine concern that embraces the value of all human beings. (shrink)