Blogging and the New Public Intellectual - Jay Rosen & Megan Garber

On October 27, 2013, Walter Russell Mead and Roger Berkowitz sat down with Jay Rosen and Megan Garber as part of the "Blogging and the New Public Intellectual" series. The series engages in ongoing discussion with the nation’s leading bloggers in politics, history, art, and culture.

Jay Rosen is a media critic, a writer, and a professor of journalism at New York University. You can visit his blog, "Pressthink" here. Megan Garber is a staff writer at The Atlantic. She was formerly an assistant editor at the Nieman Journalism Lab, where she wrote about innovations in the media. Read her work from The Atlantic here.

Roger Berkowitz started the evening by asking: Should journalists be objective or should they be political actors?

Jay Rosen answered: "Journalists have to do more than just flood us with facts." Rosen thinks of the journalist, "as a heightened form of an informed citizen." The panel discussed the idea of the journalist vs. the citizen and the myriad of ways in which the two overlap.  As well, the role the Internet plays in creating an informed public through the sharing of information.

Megan Garber added, "I'm not interested in getting my ideas out, I'm interested in exploring things publicly...There is value in convening people together to talk about one thing."

Watch the video of the discussion here.

The next event in the "Blogging and the New Public Intellectual" series will take place March 9 and features a discussion with Tom Goldstein, the Publisher and a regular contributor to the SCOTUSblog.

Learn more about the event  here and RSVP to [email protected].