CIVIC JOURNALISM AND NONELITE SOURCING - MAKING ROUTINE NEWSWORK OF COMMUNITY CONNECTEDNESS

Civic journalism's routine use of bringing more ''average'' citizens i nto the news was tested by comparing the Tallahassee (FL) Democrat, a nationally recognized civic-journalism newspaper, with its past, tradi tional-journalism self and a traditionalist contemporary. Nonelite inf ormation sources were elevated to numerical parity with elite sources in the civic journalism Democrat, but the frequency and directness of their news voices were largely unchanged. The news-voice profile of el ites was diminished in the civic-journalism paper. Routine civic journ alism at the Democrat did more to tone down the newsworthiness of elit es than to raise the volume for nonelites.