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Where does democratically engaged journalism fit on the continuum of Figure 2.1? The obvious answer is that it fits somewhere in the perspectival or active engagement divisions, perhaps the latter. However, I offer a different conception that can at first sound paradoxical: One can think of democratically engaged journalism as not on the continuum. Democratically engaged journalism is such a broad stance toward practice that we can think of many forms of journalism on the continuum, if practiced correctly, as contributing to the comprehensive goal of sustaining egalitarian democracy amid media corruption. Straight reporting in a neutral fashion does not violate the ethic of democratically engaged journalism; it simply is insufficient for democracy and it should not be the dominant approach to journalism.

A democratic public benefits from many forms of journalism: investigative journalism, interpretative journalism, community journalism, opinion journalism—all working under the umbrella stance of democratically engaged journalism. However, this “ecumenical” idea should not blind us to the fact that the moral ideology of democratically engaged journalism is calling for serious revision of how many people think about journalism. The change can be stated most provocatively by saying that, for democratically engaged journalism, journalists are, or should be, social advocates—social advocates of a special kind. They are advocates for egalitarian democracy at home and abroad. They practice an impartial journalism of method for partial ends—democratic goals. This conception is a long way from the original notion of news objectivity constructed a century ago.