Includes bibliographical references (pages 210-222) and index.

Foreword: journalism as a democratic art / Cole C. Campbell -- The idea of public journalism / Theodore L. Glasser -- The action of the idea: public journalism in built form / Jay Rosen -- In defense of public journalism / James W. Carey -- The common good as first principle / Clifford G. Christians -- Making readers into citizens--the old-fashioned way / Thomas C. Leonard -- Public journalism and democratic theory: four challenges / John Durham Peters -- What public journalism knows about journalism but doesn't know about "public" / Michael Schudson -- Journalism and the sociology of public life / John J. Pauly -- Making the neighborhood work: the improbabilities of public journalism / Barbie Zelizer -- Appendix A. On evaluating public journalism / Steven H. Chaffee and Michael McDevitt -- Appendix B. Reinventing the press for the age of commercial appeals: writings on and about public journalism / Hanno Hardt.