The Promise of Audience Engagement
Though there is widespread agreement surrounding the problems journalism faces, there also is a growing rift among journalism professionals and researchers about how best to solve them. A growing number of journalism stakeholders argue that the news should focus more on “audience engagement,” a loosely defined term that generally involves journalists’ incorporating more audience input in news production to more accurately reflect their lived experiences. Those at City Bureau and Hearken believe this more collaborative form of news production will increase the audience’s trust in news as well as the amount of value they derive from it. Others, including many at the Chicago Tribune, disagree. In addition to offering a comprehensive definition of audience engagement, this chapter also traces the disagreement surrounding it to enduring differences in how journalists perceive the public.