Abramson examines the U.S. Information Agency's two-year-old Information Bureau as an example of team-based management that is replacing traditional hierarchical bureaucracies. The new team leaders are gradually learning how to cope with a broader array of tasks and a more limited amount of resources, Abramson observes. While there are still some problems that need to be worked out, the benefits of the new management style are beginning to show.

Fallows, James. "Why Americans Hate the Media" (The Atlantic Monthly, vol. 277, no. 2, February 1996, pp. 45-64)

In this seminal article, journalist James Fallows criticizes the superficiality and sensationalism of modern journalism, especially on network television, and urges his colleagues to take the time to report on the underlying social, cultural, and economic trends that are shaping the future. Fallows criticizes his colleagues for distorting journalism in order to entertain the public and challenges them, asking: "If we don't respect what we're doing...why should anyone else?"

Hart, Roderick P. "Easy Citizenship: Television's Curious Legacy" (The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, vol. 546, July 1996, pp. 109-119)

Hart argues that modern television, with its constant glut of news, public affairs, and disaster reports, has given viewers a false sense of participating in the political and social sphere, and has removed for many citizens the incentive to participate in society, even their right to vote. "All too often," the author posits, "this (visual) tumult creates in viewers a sense of activity rather than genuine civic involvement."

Mathews, David. "Public Journalism and Public Deliberation" (National Civic Review, vol. 85, no. 1, Winter/Spring 1996, pp. 39-42)

Mathews, president of the Kettering Foundation and a former U.S. secretary of health, education, and welfare, discusses the increasing need for, and meaning of, public journalism in American democratic society. He says that "public journalism means more than announcing the dates of forums or reporting on interesting comments from public meetings. It means reporting on the effects of public deliberation on people as well as explaining what deliberation is all about."

Putnam, Robert D. "The Strange Disappearance of Civic America" (The American Prospect, no. 24, Winter 1996, pp. 34-48)

Putnam, professor and director of the Center for International Affairs at Harvard University, looks at the decline of social capital and civic engagement following on his earlier thesis in "Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital." He argues that the decline in community participation and social trust is not due to suburbanization, pressures of time and money, the changing role of women, the decline of the family, or generational effects -- although all are important to a degree. The primary culprit, he argues, is television, and increased communications technology.

Rosen, Jay. "Public Journalism Is a Challenge to You (Yes, You) (National Civic Review, vol. 85, no. 1, Winter/Spring 1996, pp. 3-6)

Rosen, who teaches journalism and directs the Project on Public Life and the Press at New York University, reports on the movement that has grown out of a concern that journalists play a more constructive role in public life. Rather than isolating themselves from the community and its institutions through fashionable cynicism, public journalists try to "improve the story a community tells about itself," Rosen explains. Doing this requires the media to look beyond the sensational story to long-terms trends and community-based solutions. His article is the lead in this Review issue devoted to "Rethinking Journalism: Rebuilding Civic Life."

Townsend, Kathleen Kennedy. "Don't be an Idios: The Case for Participation in Public Life" (The Washington Monthly, vol. 28, no. 6, June 1996, pp. 33-36)

"Democracy's promise was laid out for the Founding Fathers by the first democrats, the Greeks, who so valued public life that their word for idiot, idios, meant a private person -- one who did not engage in public affairs," writes Townsend, the lieutenant governor of the state of Maryland. She discusses the need for American citizens to participate in the process of governing rather than surrender their role in public life and blame government for its shortcomings. She finds a model for civic participation in reform efforts involving community policing and parent involvement in the public schools.

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The annotations above are part of a more comprehensive Article Alert offered on the home page of the U.S. Information Service.