Since its founding in July 1997, the Committee has embarked on what Bill Kovach calls the most systematic and comprehensive examination by journalists themselves ever attempted to study the character of American journalism. In the next few months it will offer its findings, an attempt to identify the shared values and principles that define our profession. The Committee has held 21 public forums in 19 cities, hearing from more than 300 speakers and attended by about 3,500 journalists and citizens. Only eight forums were originally scheduled but support from members around the country and from interested institutions led to the scheduling of 13 more forums. They focused on identifying the common goals of journalism such as who is a journalist, what does diversity mean, young citizens interest in journalism and new media and the Internet.
Summaries are available on our Web site as are key essays and pieces of testimony from the forums.
Content Studies . Members suggested the Committee produce some hard facts and numbers on current issues in journalism. All are available on request. From the Lewinsky work, Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel have also written a book about how the media culture now operates. The book, Warp Speed, was published by the Century Foundation.