A tale of two cities: Do smalltown dailies practice public journalism without knowing it?

This case study of two smalltown dailies in North Carolina concludes that small town dailies do practice public journalism without labelling it as such. In one case, the variant of public journalism should more accurately be labeled civic journalism because of an institutionalised and professionalised emphasis on the community’s civic life and a de-emphasis of its political life. In the other less vigorous paper, the civic journalism variant is personalised but not institutionalised or professionalised.