roundtable: Legislative Power Sharing Forum
roundtable: Legislative Power Sharing
Legislative Power Sharing
Vigdor Schreibman - FINS (fins@access.digex.net)
Fri, 4 Oct 1996 09:59:58 -0400 (EDT)
Date: Fri, 4 Oct 1996 09:59:58 -0400 (EDT)
From: Vigdor Schreibman - FINS <fins@access.digex.net>
To: Undisclosed.recipients:;@access.digex.net;
Subject: Legislative Power Sharing
Message-Id: <Pine.SUN.3.94.961004095847.20849E-100000@access2.digex.net>
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FINS: Communicating the Emerging Philosophy of The Information Age
FEDERAL INFORMATION NEWS SYNDICATE
Vol IV, Issue No. 21 (155 lines) October 6, 1996
CLOSING THE "VALUES-GAP":
Legislative Power Sharing
By Vigdor Schreibman
A challenge was issued that journalists become "activists,"
in a column written in 1990, by David Broder of the Washington
Post, one of the best respected political reporters of his
time. Broder's call for activism by journalists was, "not on
behalf of a particular party or politician, but on behalf of
the process of self-government." This is the striking vision
of "Public journalism," now gaining momentum among many local
and regional news services, across the United States.
For a web page on the "Public journalism" movement,
perspectives, and stories see: http://www.cpn.org/
sections/topics/journalism/journalism.html.
There is significant conflict over public journalism. Some
view, "The community-building function [as] central to the
journalistic mission of any serious newspaper," says Steve
Yelvington, Star Tribune Online, Minneapolis-St. Paul, in an
online-news debate on the subject, April 1995 [Fins-PaN-22].
Countering this view, online news developer Donovan White, of
L.A. Times, says that's "pretty much pap and twiddle - a twist
of the net-ethos applied to an academic view of newspapers."
FINS has been in the vanguard of public journalism,
"Communicating the emerging philosophy of the Information
Age." Reacting unjustly to this activism, an editorial in The
Hill newspaper, April 30, 1996, advocated that the Periodical
Press Galleries at the US Capitol, "Keep advocates out,"
disregarding cherished freedom of the press [Fins-NC4-11]. Now
comes Jonathan Yardley, in a column in the Washington Post,
Sept 30, 1996, denouncing, "Public journalism" as an
"insidious, dangerous idea."
The meaning of this harsh and unjust struggle over public
journalism, is derived from an ancient political thesis. In
the 220 years since the beginning of the drama of the birth
and gradual degradation of democracy in America, political
leaders have upheld the custom that power exercised by the
people's representatives in the legislature was to be
"independent of any instruction or direction by the
electorate." This independence theory of legislation was
first championed by the English parliamentarian Edmund Burke,
in a speech given at Bristol, England, November 3, 1774.
Burke had a utopian vision of the work of representatives,
when they were "free to exercise their own best judgment." He
thought a representative could best serve, if their "first
loyalty was to the longer-term interests of the country,
especially when such interests differed from parochial moods
of the moment." However, revealing the root of his rejection
of legislative direction by the electorate, Burke observed,
"We are members of a great and ancient monarchy; and we must
preserve religiously, the true rights of the sovereign, which
form the key-stone that binds together the noble and well
constructed arch of our empire and our constitution."
The sovereign English monarchy gave way to the sovereign
American citizen, with the birth of the United States of
America. Nevertheless, as the late French philosopher Michel
Foucault observed, "At bottom, despite the differences in
epochs and objectives, the representation of power has
remained under the spell of monarchy. In political thought
and analysis, we still have not cut off the head of the king."
Yardley invoked, in his column, the same ancient theory of
political power to preserve the independence of newspaper
journalists in determining "which issues are important and
which are not." That value judgment is without a sound basis
in morality, systems management, or under the US Constitution.
The citizen's sovereign power to decide is at issue. This is
the fountainhead of Republic Government, which no one may
usurp. Yet such political screens, and others arbitrarily
exercised by a constellation of contemporary power brokers,
have all but defeated self-governance, making sovereign
citizens mere spectators in the game of politics.
Now the United States is host to a new revolution. In the
tremor of deep social transformations imposed by information
technology, the tectonic plates of political power are being
reshaped. The diminished geographic relevance of local and
regional news services have rendered counter productive, any
attempt by those organs to exercise independent political
powers. The palpable interdependence between news services,
journalists, and the citizenry to be served--whether as
reader, viewer, or listener--has become increasingly evident.
Adapting creatively to this situation, some local and
regional news groups are turning toward a citizen-centered
psychology of legislative power sharing, and away from the
customary exercise of power, "independent of any instruction
or direction by the electorate." Expressing his concern over
this new situation, Yardley described the comment of Rick
Thames, "public editor" of the Charlotte Observer in an
interview with the New York Times last month. Yardley writes:
"[T]here's more concern than ever before in the media as
to whether the candidates are really addressing issues
that matter to readers and the public," and that it was
the aim of the North Carolina media coalition to fill in
the blanks in the political dialogue.
Case studies (reported at the PJ movement web site), reveal
that journalists are now polling the voters, and facilitating
collective deliberation about what issues most concern them,
then running comprehensive reports on the candidates' position
regarding priority issues. This work is helping to realize
the important process of democratic self-government, by
connecting the news and democracy, engaging the entire public
in the decisions that affect them all in the long term, and
offering critical commentary on the complicated issued that
the public should understand. This is the core set of ideas
of public journalism, inspired by the educational philosophy
of John Dewey, and the leadership values of columnist Walter
Lippmann, which have been reevaluated in up-to-date context by
James Fallows, "Breaking The News" (1996): ch 6.
In shifting power to decide on the legislative agenda away
from the independent judgement of legislative representatives
toward structures, which are unsettled, responsibility cannot
be privatized. The legislative agenda for public goods such
as libraries, schools, health promotion, clean air, and local
government, must not be left overly dependent upon business
news priorities, whatever may be their espoused purposes.
A democratic National Information Infrastructure (dNII),
should have public channels managed by democratic community
institutions [Fins-CS-06]. This could also support balance
between the values of economic prosperity, social equity and
ecological integrity, which are essential to the well being of
the people and survival of the biosphere of Planet Earth.
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