The Conversation of Journalism ― Communication, Community and News

Arguing in the first book-length exploration of a conversational and dialogic model for journalism that "accurately reporting the news" is a surprisingly limiting if not disabling mission, the authors draw optimistically on past strengths of the media, especially print journalism, to reform and redefine a more ecumenical, constructive, participative, and democratically responsive role for journalism's institutional future. The book's scope is wide, and it includes many current trends: minority voices, contextualizing the news, providing interactive community forums, reconciling informational and entertainment functions, creating "public opinion," and understanding the nature of bias.

ROB ANDERSON is Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Communication at Saint Louis University. He is the author ofStudents as Real People: Interpersonal Communication and Education (1979)

-author of Before the Story: Interviewing and Communication Skills for Journalists (1989),Questions of Communication: A Practical Introduction to Theory (1993), andAccounting and Communication (forthcoming) and co-editor of The Reach of Dialogue: Confirmation, Voice, and Community (forthcoming).

ROBERT DARDENNE is Associate Professor at the School of Mass Communications at the University of South Florida at St. Petersburg. He has also had a distinguished career as an investigative reporter, writer, and editor in New York, Washington, D.C., Louisiana, and Mexico City. His writing has appeared in the Journal of American Culture and inMedia, Myths and Narratives, edited by James Carey (1988).

GEORGE M. KILLENBERG is Professor in the School of Mass Communications at the University of South Florida at St. Petersburg. He is the author ofPublic Affairs Reporting: Covering the News in the Information Age (1992), and co-author, with Rob Anderson, ofBefore the Story: Interviewing and Communication Skills for Journalists (1989).