THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc. DATE: Sunday, February 26, 1995 TAG: 9502260056 SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A2 EDITION: FINAL COLUMN: EDITOR'S NOTEBOOK SOURCE: Cole C. Campbell, Editor LENGTH: Medium: 83 lines
Robert D. Putnam, a professor of international affairs at Harvard University, published a fascinating report in January's Journal of Democracy - ``Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital.''
Putnam points out that the number of bowlers in America increased 10 percent from 1980 to 1993, but bowling in leagues dropped by 40 percent.
If you run a bowling alley, this is a significant economic threat, because league bowlers consume three times as much beer and pizza - the real cash generators - as do solo bowlers.
More importantly, bowling alone is another vivid sign of Americans withdrawing from social interaction and public life. Other signs include declines in voting, PTA membership, volunteer participation and attendance at governmental or political meetings.
Putnam and others say that these declines represent an erosion of social capital - assets a community taps to ensure effective decision-making. This capital exists in the networks, norms and trust that bind a community together.
What builds social capital? Putnam points to civic engagement - the willingness of citizens to engage one another in learning about each other and addressing shared challenges.
``Researchers in such fields as education, urban poverty, unemployment, the control of crime and drug abuse and even health have discovered that successful outcomes are more likely in civically engaged communities,'' he writes. ``For a variety of reasons, life is easier in a community blessed with a substantial stock of social capital.''
Which brings us to today's story on the Metro News front by staff writer Mike Knepler of our Public Life team.
Mike reports on a workshop hosted Saturday by Norfolk Mayor Paul D. Fraim to explore a new relationship - a partnership - between citizens and City Hall.
Fraim also is spending from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. the first Tuesday of every month meeting one-on-one with citizens. And he will meet quarterly with civic leagues to discuss city policy, while city department heads will meet quarterly with neighborhood groups.
At The Virginian-Pilot, we're interested in these developments as news stories. And we believe the newspaper also can do a better job of facilitating civic engagement.
Journalists always have believed that one of our roles is to assist self-government by educating people about what's happening in the community. Now we recognize a larger obligation: to help educate people about how to work through and resolve public issues, and to remove some barriers to involvement that our coverage may erect.
For example, if our coverage suggests over time that participating in public life is futile because public institutions and officials invariably disappoint us, then fewer people will engage in it. That means fewer people will need newspapers to keep up with what's happening outside of their own households, neighborhoods and workplaces.
That's not good for us. And it's not good for democracy.
We want to move beyond our function as consciousness-raiser - drawing the public's attention to problem after problem as we rush from crisis to crisis. We want to embrace the next steps of effective deliberation: working through problems and resolving them.
Under the leadership of Public Life Editor Tom Warhover and reporters like Mike Knepler, we're developing new ways to frame stories and new ways to engage readers. We're still finding our way, so don't expect a totally different newspaper tomorrow. We'll keep you apprised of what we're learning - and changing - as we move along this path.
Above all, we want to avoid this scary portrait drawn by Alexis de Tocqueville in assessing democracy in America in 1848:
``There are countries in Europe where the native considers himself as a kind of settler, indifferent to the fate of the spot which he inhabits. . . . (T)he condition of his village, the police of his street, the repairs of the church or the parsonage, do not concern him; for he looks upon all these things as unconnected to himself and as the property of a powerful stranger whom he calls the government. . . .
``When a nation has arrived at this state, it must either change its customs or perish; for the source of public virtues is dried up; and though it may contain subjects, it has no citizens.'' by CNB