The second of my City University first term lectures to post-grads is simply entitled "What is journalism for?" I delivered it on Monday and, by coincidence, the head of City's journalism school, Adrian Monck, next day posted an item headed, Journalism's functions in a democracy.
Adrian was quoting from an article by Michael Schudson (author of the forthcoming book, Why democracies need an unlovable press) in which he lists the following six functions:
1. Informing the public
2. Investigation
3. Analysis
4. Social surveillance
5. Public forum
6. Mobilisation
The first five read like the bullet points from my own lecture, in which I stress that "pure journalism" is about public service, about enhancing democracy or helping to further the causes of democracy. But it's that sixth point that's so challenging - and contentious - for journalists.
Should we mobilise? Even if we fulfil the previous five functions, should we tell people what they should do with the information we provide? Isn't the provision of knowledge enough in itself?
Arguably, Britain's partisan national newspapers do tell people what to do, but there would be questions about whether the information on which they base their calls for action is sufficiently accurate (and unbiased).
That's obvious enough. But there are less partisan news providers about, such as the BBC. Would we be happy for a mobilisation based on its output? I somehow doubt that. And I suspect the BBC, given its eagerness to avoid links between either its entertainment or news and current affairs output to campaigns, would doubt it too.
Firstly, the underlying (maybe overarching) message from the BBC's news agenda is often little different from that we read in our newspapers. That's no surprise because all too often its agenda is set by those papers.
Secondly, and most importantly, even if the information was entirely objective (an implausible scenario), why should we, the people, want any form of top-down mobilising journalism? New media is surely taking us in the opposite direction, is it not?
