Yet this modification covers only one leg of the journalistic triangle, so to speak. Two other mantras, honor your sources and anticipate questions shape the remaining connections that, considered together, constitute a balanced perspective. Indeed, while it is tempting to give your reader all the beta (which, provided your motivation in writing aligns with your audience's in reading, does satisfy anticipate questions), be equally considerate of your subjects—of whom you're writing about. I don't emphasize this in the sense of hesitant, reluctant writing but rather to stress that how the treatment of sources and information is essential to running the triangle. Below is an example from summer development league ball (i.e. summer internship) to illustrate the point. (Note: the scenario has been altered to maintain leg number two above.

To begin, imagine you're writing a story on a skyscraper-painting family business. Their job is dangerous, firstly, and it also intrigues you that they've managed to compete in the market in your city so well for so many years. At the end of the interview, after you've discussed various experiences in the field, you ask if there's anything else they'd like to add. One member of the family, who hasn't talked much during the interview, speaks up. "There is one thing," she says. "Sometimes, when we're painting, members of the smaller companies will make their way into the buildings and protest our work with signs and chants. I know it's entirely their right, but it really bothers me."

Now, flash forward to you, at your desk, writing the story. This offhand fact about rival companies intrigues you and, out of love for your reader, you wish to include it in the piece, so you do a follow-up call to inquire more about these protests. Your source becomes a little uncomfortable, insisting that if those comments are included, they don't want their name in the piece. So here, as you run the journalistic triangle, you are toeing a line on the court. You need their name and quotes for the piece, yet this information, although it would make for an interesting layer to the story, would take them out of it. What to do?

There's no hard and fast rule, but in my case I found it pays to look at how essential the information is to your core point. Oftentimes these interesting side notes can embellish your reporting but at the same time detract from your focus. And you can always use these pieces as leads to other stories where you don't reveal the initial source. Then you're running the triangle.

Schudson's point—that by going to specific websites catered to specific interests, citizens aren't adequately equipped to engage in meaningful political discussions—was part of a larger discussion on the reconstruction of American journalism. It began with the usual eulogy we've all heard, as Schudson announced the total "devastation" within a "pulsing set" of 25 major metropolitan U.S. newspapers, and moved gradually from there to where we now sat—albeit rather uncomfortably—having just seen our "public" hung, drawn, and quartered by digital horses running off into cyberspace at the speed of light. Perhaps this was British-style punishment for an American crime, but that characterization seems too simple and metaphorically muddy. Instead, let's take the principle of contrast as a foundation and work from there. (It's reconstruction, after all.)

In the U.K., government support for the media is 15 times what it is in the States (a mere $400 million) and 75 times more per capita. And though some may argue that such funding automatically equals censorship—pointing their supportive-evidence fingers at North Korea—let us keep in mind that vibrant democracies certainly exist with both freedom of the press and government-funded media. Aside from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, with its enormous British Broadcasting Corporation, these nations include Germany and Japan. And to those Americans who fear coercive government-funded media, do they shy away from PBS and NPR? In many cases, an often-enlightened, well-balanced, informed discussion begins with, "I heard on NPR this morning." In short, these media do far more good than harm.

Yet this is to skip a few steps, namely from one of blaming selective internet-surfing for a less informed public—that is, informed in the meaningful sense—to one of calling for wide government intervention in our media, and so I should qualify Schudson's "dismemberment" as only one threat to the well-being of American media and democracy. The other, and perhaps more important, is that as media sources increasingly recognize that opinion sells, it's becoming harder and harder to stick to objective neutrality in the world of news. And this is why some suggest intervention.

Realistically, however—and despite 2009's proposed "Newspaper Revitalization Act" in Congress—such bailouts to the media are not going to happen. And considering that the media is increasingly absent at state and local levels (these days, inside-the-beltway polarization seems entertainingly magnetic to all those outside), traditional metropolitan papers have an arguably greater responsibility to our public-on-life-support. Indeed, in stressing that city papers often break stories and set the national agenda, and that newspaper investigations which begin locally can open up national and even international issues, Schudson—standing in a room in Oxford, England—cited to The Boston Globe's exposure of the Catholic church's sexual abuse cases.

In June I began working at the Globe (as part of my Lovejoy internship), and though I can't reasonably expect to break the big story or engage in any ultimate ideal of civic journalism, I can already sense the responsibility that comes with a tradition of accuracy, fairness, and balance on all issues. To do anything else would be to betray not just our role as journalists but also as citizens in a healthy democracy.