"Citizen Kentucky:
Democracy and the Media" airs on KET at 10 p.m. (ET, 9 p.m. CT) on Monday, June 4.
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May
31, 2001 – (Lexington, Ky.) – Four dozen
leaders of journalism and public life will debate the interconnections of politics,
journalism, education and homelife and how they've changed in recent years and will change
in the future on "Citizen Kentucky: Democracy and the Media," airing at 10 p.m.
(ET, 9 p.m. CT) Monday, June 4, on KET, and at 10 p.m. (9 CT) Friday, June 8, on KET2. The discussion is built around the book Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American
Community, in which Harvard professor Robert Putnam examines the changing role of
community in American life. He points to an increasingly disconnected society and the
deterioration of both civic and community organizations.
The ideas presented by Putnam served as
the starting point to a recent forum at the University of Kentucky. "Citizen
Kentucky" presents highlights from this forum as well as individual interviews with
many of the participants.
Among the 48 participants are Time magazine contributor Bonnie Angelo; Judith
Clabes, president and CEO of the Scripps Howard Foundation; Courier-Journal editorial
director David Hawpe; Lexington Herald-Leader publisher Tim Kelly; former senator Wendell
Ford; Cincinnati News Hall of Fame journalist Nick Clooney; and Kentucky historian Thomas
Clark. Buck Ryan, director of the U.K. School of Journalism and Telecommunications,
moderated the event, which was part of the school’s fourth annual First Amendment
Celebration.
In the first part of the program, Ryan
calls on the participants to discuss their thoughts on the decline in community
engagement, both in Kentucky and on the national level. The second part focuses on
possible solutions to this problem.
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