ABSTRACT
Public reporting was developed by American public administration theorists in the early twentieth century in an effort to harmonize the emergence of the administrative state with mass democracy. Inasmuch as permanent, autonomous, and merit-based bureaucracies were designed to be relatively immune to election results, there was a need to reconcile public administration with democracy. This led to a change in the conceptualization of public reporting as the way government agencies would be somewhat accountable to the citizenry. In its initial manifestation, public reporting was largely a hard-copy activity, either indirect reporting through newspapers or direct reporting through printed annual reports. Its high-water mark occurred in 1939 when President Franklin Roosevelt created an agency dedicated to public reporting, called the Office of Government Reports. However, political opposition in the Congress regarding the new agency eventually led to its demise. This had the effect of dampening public administration's enthusiasm for public reporting and it largely faded in practice in the second half of the twentieth century.The emergence of online communication technologies prompted a reinvigoration of public reporting. Agencies now had a platform to report directly to the citizenry without the costs of printing and mailing. The Internet facilitated an agency reaching interested but diffused audiences, more frequent reporting than annually, more visually interesting reports, and two-way communication. This has led to a renaissance of public reporting in the United States in the twenty-first century. Called e-reporting, modern-day reporting focuses especially on performance results. This has further enhanced the utility and benefits of public reporting.
