The civic journalism movement (also known as public journalism) is, according to professor David K. Perry of the University of Alabama, an attempt to abandon the notion that journalists and their audiences are spectators in political and social processes. In its place, the civic journalism movement seeks to treat readers and community members as participants. With a small but committed following, civic journalism has become as much of a philosophy as it is a practice.

According to the now dormant Pew Center for Civic Journalism, the practice "is both a philosophy and a set of values supported by some evolving techniques to reflect both of those in journalism. At its heart is a belief that journalism has an obligation to public life – an obligation that goes beyond just telling the news or unloading lots of facts. The way we do our journalism affects the way public life goes." Leading organizations in the field such as the now dormant Pew Center, the Kettering Foundation, the Civic and Citizen Journalism Interest Group in the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) and the Public Journalism Network assist with the spread of civic journalism across the country—one university and one paper at a time.

Jay Rosen (born May 5, 1956 in Buffalo, New York) is a media critic, a writer, and a professor of journalism at New York University.

Rosen has been on the journalism faculty at New York University since 1986; from 1999 to 2005 he served as chair of the Department.

He has been one of the earliest advocates and supporters of citizen journalism, encouraging the press to take a more active interest in citizenship, improving public debate, and enhancing life. His book about the subject, What Are Journalists For? was published in 1999. Rosen is often described in the media as an intellectual leader of the movement of public journalism.

Rosen writes frequently about issues in journalism and developments in the media. Media criticism and other articles by Rosen have appeared in The New York Times, The Los Angeles TimesSalon.com, Harper's Magazine, and The Nation.

He runs his own weblog called PressThink, which concentrates on what's happening to journalism in the age of the Net. His writing for the weblog won the Reporters Without Borders Freedom Blog award in 2005. He is also a semi-regular contributor to The Huffington Post.