Abstract

This chapter considers the concept of ‘urban journalism’ and how it might lead us to an understanding of a global media ethics. While urban journalism has been the focus of some study in the past 15–20 years, it has been inherently tied to international notions of urban sustainable development so that many of the practical expressions of urban journalism emanate from international bodies like the United Nations, and UNESCO. In earlier forms, urban journalism was closely tied to the gritty side of city life and later to the theorisations of urban social movements. It can be thought of as the journalism that was expected to emerge from an understanding and depiction of the city and city life. Drawing upon examples of urban journalism experiments from around the world—including The Guardian’s Guardian Cities section—and placing those examples within the context of urban geography, social movements, alternative and radical media and the imagery of the city as an ‘unruly’ place, the chapter enunciates what urban journalism currently is and intimates what it could be.