“We need to see people not as readers, nonreaders, endangered readers, not as customers to be wooed or an audience to be entertained, but as a public, citizens capable of action.”
DAVIS “BUZZ” MERRITT, WICHITA EAGLE, 1995
In 1990, Poland was experiencing growing pains as it shifted from a state-controlled economic system to a more open market economy. The country’s leading newspaper, Gazeta Wyborcza, the first noncommunist newspaper to appear in Eastern Europe since the 1940s, was also undergoing challenges. Based in Warsaw with a circulation of about 350,000 at the time, Gazeta Wyborcza had to report on and explain the new economy and the new crime wave that accompanied it. Especially troubling to the news staff and Polish citizens were gangs that robbed American and Western European tourists at railway stations, sometimes assaulting them in the process. The stolen goods would then pass to an outer circle, whose members transferred the goods to still another exterior ring of thieves. Even if the police caught the inner circle members, the loot usually disappeared.
These developments triggered heated discussions in the newsroom. A small group of young reporters, some of whom had recently worked in the United States, argued that the best way to cover the story was to describe the new crime wave and relay the facts to readers in a neutral manner. Another group, many of whom were older and more experienced, felt that the paper should take an advocacy stance and condemn the criminals through interpretive columns on the front page. The older guard won this particular debate, and more interpretive pieces appeared.41
This story illustrates the two competing models that have influenced American and European journalism since the early 1900s. The first—the informational or modern model—emphasizes describing events and issues from a seemingly neutral point of view. The second—a more partisan or European model—stresses analyzing occurrences and advocating remedies from an acknowledged point of view.
In most American newspapers today, the informational model dominates the front page, while the partisan model remains confined to the editorial pages and an occasional front-page piece. However, alternative models of news—from the serious to the satirical—have emerged to challenge modern journalistic ideals.