Chapter 3 A Return to Practice: reclaiming journalism as public

I question Meadows's take on the history of journalism, that journalism was some natural progression from 'public-sphere activities where disparate members of the public...met to discuss politics, sports, gossip...' It sounds all a little idealistic, a l little democratic for my liking. Somehow I don’t think the aristocrats or the upper class of the day would mingle in "pubs" and "cafes" with the underclass’s and working poor to have intelligent conversations about the politics of the day. It doesn't happen now and I wouldn’t have expected it to happen back then when class differentiation was much more pronounced.

So following on from that, I take issue with this idea of returning or reclaiming journalism as public conversation. I doubt that it ever was, or at least to the degree that Meadows claims. Actually I was told by one of the contributors to our wonderful text, Mr Steve Mac, in first year, that newspapers began as a way for businesses to push their political burrows. So I think there are different views on the 'purity' of the origins of journalism and Meadows's views (although he presents them as facts) should not be taken as gospel.

I would like to take one last dig at Meadows if i could :-P He relies heavily on one source, Carey, to back up his arguments. A quick count finds 15 out of his 21 quotes in this four pages of his chapter cite Carey, which I think this shows a serious flaw in his research and brings into question the credibility of his arguments.