In 2008-2009, Donald W. Reynolds Fellow Mike Fancher concluded that journalists needed to develop a “new ethic of public engagement” as an enhancement or amendment to The Journalist’s Creed. This year, Reynolds Fellow Joy Mayer has been following that thread. She’s been asking: “What do we mean by engagement?”

The idea of sorting out the meaning of public, or civic engagement, will be a convening them of “Beyond Books: News, Literacy, Democracy and America’s Libraries,” an April 6-7 symposium and do-session at the MIT Center for Future Civic Media.

Co-organized by Journalism That Matters, the American Library Association and others, RJI will fund the participation of Mayer and Mizzou journalism librarian Dorothy Carner.

In this short discussion in late January with 2008-2009 Reynolds Fellow Bill Densmore, Mayer talks about her thinking on “engagement” so far. Click on the carat to the left of the bar below to launch streaming audio of the eight-minute discussion, or

DOWNLOAD AN MP3 PODCAST to hear interview.