Rosen is often described in the media as an intellectual leader of the movement of public journalism.

The discussion that is beginning here over the benefits and dangers of public journalism is likely to be repeated in communities across the country.

My idea of public journalism," he said, "is finding out what's going on and raising hell about it.

But how do you get the public interested in the efforts to do good journalism, to understand the pressures against doing it?

It's hard to tell from reading Rosen, but one can believe all these things and still not subscribe to the philosophy of public journalism.

Often called public or civic journalism, the movement is so young that some of its proponents say they are still defining it.

That is the true public journalism, or whatever.

Change those economic facts, and the need for public journalism recedes remarkably.

We found that there was very little pressure from the public to have higher quality journalism.

And even some who support aspects of public journalism say that the papers here have gone too far in ignoring the horse race.