The American newspaper as the public conversational commons.

Most scholars in political theory and sociology have dismissed journalism as an institutional force in the public sphere, in part because of journalists' largely self-defined and curiously marginalized role as a mere transmission apparatus for traditional news. The authors advocate a philosophy of public journalism faithful to the commons, in which newspapers become a site for public dialogue accessible to all citizens, where positions that could not or would not be explored elsewhere are advanced, argued, assessed, and acted upon.