How journalism can promote civic engagement - or undercut it

[Commentary] A generation ago, when mass-market publishing demanded expensive presses or broadcast licenses, gatekeeper-controlled media provided the only way to reach a large community. Today, with the Internet reducing the barrier to entry for publishing to near zero, forcing the public back into gatekeeper media would rob our communities of their potential for greater growth. The combination of professional reporters and engaged citizens, working together, can cover more stories on more topics, in more communities and with more first-person expertise than even the largest and best-funded newsrooms of our industry's past could have done on their own. Many of our readers know this. They have begun producing their own news, and eagerly looking for news from others. They're never going back to gatekeeper-only media again. The question for journalists, then, is this: Will we step forward into this new model with our readers? Or will we choose instead to try to hold them back, as we devote our energy and remaining income to more desperate attempts to revive our past?