"Besides, we feel we should be doing something more than just reporting the news," says Agnes Lira-Jundos of ABS-CBN Bacolod. "That is one of the reasons why some of us here in Negros Occidental formed the Negros Green Corps to specifically address environmental issues beyond the scope of what we ordinarily do as journalists. We don't want our communities to merely be sources of news; we want them to become resources as well."

What is actually emerging in the local areas is a redefinition of journalism as journalists perceive it: that better journalism and connected communities will result to better or enhanced public life converging in a concept called public journalism.

In a week-long seminar workshop in Boracay, Aklan, journalists from Iloilo, Negros Occidental and Capiz studied the Aklan media experience and discussed what they can do to engage citizens and communities not only to reinvigorate their role but also to enhance public life.

The concept of public journalism in the Philippines has parallels in the United States where journalists at the beginning of 1990 began to reexamine their relationship with local communities which they perceive to have become apathetic and less participative especially in such democratic exercises as registering and voting.

Several cases of successful public, or civic, journalism as it is sometimes called in the US, have been documented by the Pew Center for Public Journalism and the Poynter Institute for Media Studies. These cases reflect initiatives by journalists and media organizations to reconnect with their communities and engage citizens in the newsmaking process, as Jay Tejada in Aklan, Toots Escalada in General Santos City and Agnes Lira Jundos in Bacolod are doing.

These are not mere happenstances proclaiming a new fad among a different breed of journalists out there. Rather, it is a consciousness that is brought about by a desire to put power in the hands of citizens by providing catalytic avenues for expression and action.

Melinda de Jesus, Executive Director of the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility and resource speaker at the Boracay workshop put it rather more aptly. Said she: "Public journalism, while totally new in the Philippine context, demands of the journalist a commitment, it demands of him a decision to step over the line between traditional journalism and public journalism or not."

It may be too early to say that public journalism, given the rambunctious nature of the industry in the Philippines, could easily take root only to be repudiated as another aspect of the "developmental journalism" espoused during the Marcos regime. Observable trends, however, indicate an increasing awareness among journalists, at least in the provinces, of the need for media to not only engage citizens and communities directly to help them find solutions to their own problems but also for them to become part of the democratization process.

This may not sit well with purists who believe that the role of journalists is to merely report the news as factually and objectively as possible. Others tend to view the concept as coopting the media into the mainstream of governance itself which media are posited to view from an adversarial standpoint.

But as Melinda de Jesus said in one of the small group discussions in Boracay, while there is much debate about public journalism, journalists themselves are saying that they see their roles expanding beyond the usual norms.

The concept may have also triggered some introspection among veteran, Manila-based journalists.

"I don't know if I can label it public journalism or not, but after I did a story for Probe about the plight of farmers in a small Quezon town, I felt I had to do something more…so I put the people in touch with the concerned authorities," narrates Howie Severino of the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism and The Probe Team. Severino was discussing investigative reporting during the Boracay workshop.

What is really clear at this point is that public journalism could provide the mechanism for journalists to find that reconnection with their communities in helping them solve their problems and at the same time open windows of opportunities for improving and invigorating their craft.

A journalist-participant in the workshop perhaps provides fitting context to what public journalism is all about: "It is both a work ethic and principle of engagement and participation that redefines the role of media in the change process. It really boils down to helping communities articulate their views more effectively."

RED BATARIO is a freelance journalist based in Manila. He is also Executive Director of the Center for Community Journalism and Development (CCJD), a non-profit working with media, civil society and institutions for the development of an enabling environment that would contribute to better communities through public journalism.

This article was first published in the Philippine Journalism Review.