The following is guest editorial that was written by Denise Dowling, denise.dowling@mso.umt.edu, Associate Professor and Chair, Radio-Television Department, at The University of Montana.

For the full list of suggestions and to listen to the audio.

The University of Montana is not a happy place to work these days.  We’ve had the wind knocked out of us as we’ve been pummeled with accusations of rape, complicity and cover up on our campus.  It’s forced a collective gasp from us, the employees of UM, for this is not the place we know. But there it is, like a hard, cold slap in the face.  Horrible things have happened here and now we must work through the calamity.

Journalism as a Democratic Art, a new collection of essays by public journalism pioneer Cole Campbell and edited by Tony Wharton, is now available from Kettering Foundation Press. Campbell, who passed away in 2007 at the age of 53, was an acclaimed journalist as well as a longtime Kettering colleague. Each piece in the collection expresses Campbell's belief that "people expect the press to help their communities solve problems." As one-time editor of the Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk, Virginia, and then the Post-Dispatch in St. Louis, Missouri, Campbell worked to align his profession with that belief, often facing considerable resistance from other journalists. Campbell's essays address a variety of subjects, including a partly-finished dictionary for journalists; timely essays written in the months after Hurricane Katrina and 9/11; and an interview by Jay Rosen, longtime professor of journalism at New York University.

(The following is Gerald Ott's response to a guest columnist's piece  titled "One Helping of Irony is now Being Served" in DesMoinesRegister.com.)

Graham,

Nice piece in today's Des Moines Register. Near the end you say "Instead of disparaging those seeking to be heard, those in elected office need to give these throngs a voice by trying to collaborate to improve America’s situation."

On Saturday I attended a forum at the DM Central Library. The seven of us "deliberated" about the national debt, using a moderated process and materials from the Nat'l Issues Forums (www.nifi.org). It seemed the few at the library were collaborating, but the throngs were in the streets. Any thoughts about how the two might get together (along with elected officials)?

A Deliberative ‘Carpe Diem’ Moment

Posted on August 2, 2011 by Craig Paterson on his blog Deliberative Ideas

Certain moments in history require dedicated and focused attention to critical decisions. I believe we’re living in one of those moments…when deliberative work can be incredibly important for short-term and long-term well-being of our neighbors and our country. This is the moment for which we’ve been prepared in our experiences, our research and studies, and our professional practices. Carpe diem, my friends! ‘Seize the day’ to revive our democratic resilience through thousands of networked, small-group conversations to inform our leaders with the values, hopes and expectations of all Americans.

Last November and again in May, research workshops at the Kettering Foundation focused on how online digital strategies could encourage and effectively network greater public engagement in our most critical political dilemmas. In both of these workshops, we reaffirmed our confidence that great strides have been made in dialogue and deliberation during the past quarter century. We have a remarkably rich and deep deliberative infrastructure in place for in big cities and small towns across the country. Our biggest challenge it seems is to coordinate highly diverse efforts and then to make sense of a huge and nebulous cloud of deliberative data.