O fim do Pew Center for Civic Journalism, que a Elisabete noticiou ontem neste blog, não é lamentado por toda a gente. No Editor & Publisher, por exemplo, Allan Wolper chega a escrever em título: "Que descanse em paz!". No seu modo de ver, "it is time to let the Civic Journalism Movement go. It has done enough damage -- thanks to hundreds of thousands of dollars flowing to newsrooms from the Pew Center for Civic Journalism. But, fortunately, the center is closing its checkbook, and doors, next month and won't be funding any more of those reach-out-and-touch-someone programs that it calls good journalism. Here's hoping the movement goes with it. The Pew center has used colleges to promote the notion that focus groups, forums, interactive Web sites, polls, town meetings, and voluntarism are the best ways to reach readers. What this approach often does is establish connections to those who want to retain their power rather than to those who need to be empowered to improve their lives. The media have lost the trust of people because corporate profit-mongers nickle-and-dime newsrooms to death -- especially at certain chain-controlled journalism outposts. Reporters who used to cover one or two municipalities became responsible for three or four and sometimes an entire county -- working the territory from the serene setting of a central office. Call it E-mail Journalism".