Civilitas revisited: civic debate needed

Free speech brings out the best in people, and sometimes the worst. We at AOJ aim to help improve the balance in public discourse.

Daily, sincere and often knowledgeable people engage in free-wheeling political discussions in diverse media and informal settings. Sad to say, the public conversation also contains untruth, ignorance, invective and illogic.

Disrespect, dishonesty, libel and character assassination pollute the conversation, so many Americans see a serious problem with incivility broadly, not just with mere bad manners, in public life.

The Jan. 8, 2011, shootings of U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and several other people led to increasing condemnation of the ugly, contentious and violence-provoking language at the margins of the public conversation. Various �civility initiatives� appeared in government and academia.

Leaders in the National Conference of Editorial Writers (now Association of Opinion Journalists) noted that �civility� has its roots in �good citizenship.� That is the reasoning behind the Civility Project's new name, Civilitas AOJ.

Opinion writers, in their daily work, often touch on citizenship and the quality of public conversation. They rebut phony arguments and serve as a truth squad when someone tries to mislead the public. They evaluate their own words against personal and professional canons and the rules of effective argumentation. Few other professional roles are so close to the conduct of an ongoing civic conversation.

Members of AOJ (NCEW, 1947-2011) already had a platform. The 1975 Basic Statement of Principles stresses factualness, logic and fairness in journalistic opinion. The opposites � distortion, illogic and unfairness � are uncivil.

The principles argue against �canned� editorials from undisclosed sources. That practice is less common now, but transparency has new urgency in the Internet era.

Some of the worst cases of uncivil speech lurk in anonymous posting functions of the Internet. A provocateur can plant rumors, spread libel or instigate violence. We saw a need to examine these things.

Some critics had trouble reconciling �civility� with critical evaluation, robust analysis or biting disapproval, all inextricable elements of opinion journalism. Others asked whether �civility� and �opinion journalism� are incompatible concepts.

�Civility� sounded to some like political correctness contrary to the traditions of journalistic opinionizing and the First Amendment.

Leaders concluded that the proper role of AOJ in this is to be concerned with the tone of the political conversation � and with its effectiveness. "Civilitas� connotes graciousness and courtesy, but like its Latin root, it denotes the broader responsibilities of citizenship.

During the fall, NCEW members discussed and largely dispelled concerns that the project intended to impose civility standards on the membership or opinion journalists in general.

The project intends, rather, to marshal the organization's expertise and individual members' wisdom toward improving the integrity of public discussion.

One phase of the project will be things we can pursue as an organization. Another [already under way] is what members can do in their communities. There will be no new standards, no attempt to define civility in editorial and column writing.

Many things have conditioned society for incivility in public discourse. One is the simplistic rhetoric of campaigning, using ideological assertion over fact and logic. The adversary gets demonized.

Some audiences lack analytical ability. Politicians sling mud, as has been said, because mud-slinging works. It generates news coverage. Some voters comprehend the dirt, but not the minutiae of public policy. The audience needs skills to avoid being bamboozled.

This organization intends to comment publicly when such behavior presents a clear-cut opportunity for educating participants or the public.

Our leaders have been considering a coaching handbook, workshops and other forms of outreach.

Every opinion writer is the local watchdog who has been on the case all along, the sheriff who knows the town. While we deplore untruth, illogic and unfairness in the national discussion, the project defers to local journalists for debunking political prevarication closer to home.

Savvy politicians will abandon behavior that they know will be called out in a local forum.

Some material labeled uncivil now might very well be robust give-and-take in the hallowed traditions of free speech. The project does not seek to redefine political campaigning or reinvent the public-policy conversation or dilute strongly held views with doses of "nice-nice."

Rather, we focus on the margins, attempts to deceive the public or destroy the opposition with lies, illogic and character assassination.

We aim to be persuasive, no matter how great the distance between points of view, in promoting respect, not only for the adversary but also for the audience and for the democratic institutions whose well-being depends so much on the wisdom of an informed electorate.

  (Frank Partsch, civility/Civilitas project director and author of the proposal from which most of this article was excerpted, was the editorial page editor of The Omaha World-Herald for a quarter century. Several others contributed to the Civilitas update. Masthead editor John McClelland of Roosevelt University accepts responsibility for any induced aberrance.)

The Masthead, published since 1948-49 by the National Conference of Editorial Writers, now the Association of Opinion Journalists. Winter 2012 published February 23, 2012, at opinionjournalists.org (c) 2012 AOJ.