Civic Catalyst Newsletter
Summer 2002
Batten Award Money Takes Many Paths
By Pat Ford
Pew Center Staff Writer
A shelter for homeless families in Minneapolis. A journalism-training program for minority high school students in the Bay Area. A leadership-training program for Peoria neighborhood activists.
Each has received support from news organizations that won a Batten Award, named for revered Knight Ridder executive James Batten. So did a Kansas City character-education program, the Oakland African-American Museum and America’s Fund for Afghan Children.
There is no requirement, or even expectation, that Batten Award money – $25,000, usually divided among three recipients – will be used for altruistic purposes. Indeed, most of the 20 news organizations that have received the award over the past seven years have rewarded their staff members.
Several, though, have used the funds to continue civic journalism projects. And about one-third of the winners donated the money to community groups whose work related to the award-winning project.
“This was a way to take the spirit of Jim Batten beyond our journalism and apply the Pew money where it would make a difference right away for real kids in our town,” said Frank Denton, editor of the Wisconsin State Journal, which won a $5,000 legacy award this year for its ongoing “Schools of Hope” project.
The Journal and WISC-TV used the money to buy 48 backpacks for a special reading project. The backpacks are loaded with books, exercises and games designed to get kids to interact with their families in improving their literacy.
“The program has worked well with elementary school kids and our gift will allow its expansion to preschoolers, particularly at-risk kids,” Denton said. “The packs are checked out for two weeks, then recycled, so lots of kids will benefit. And they last a long time so a little bit of our journalism and Jim Batten and Pew will be going home with those kids for years.”
Kate Parry, St. Paul Pioneer Press senior editor, said that often so many people have worked on a project that donating a lump sum seems more rewarding than dividing the money among staffers.
For example, 22 people had a hand in the 1999 award-winning “Poverty Among Us” series. Each could have received about $300. Parry said they unanimously agreed to donate the money to three local anti-poverty groups.
KRON-TV in San Francisco donated its 1999 Batten winnings for “About Race” to the Oakland African-American Museum and San Francisco State University for a journalism-training program for minority high school students.
The Peoria Journal Star won a 1997 Batten Award for a Pew-funded civic leadership project and endowed a community-leadership training fund by combining about $8,000 from the award with $6,000 in other funds.
“We had budgeted money for a community questionnaire and the professor who did it got so excited about it … that he didn’t charge us,” said Managing Editor Jack Brimeyer.
The survey found that traditional sources of volunteer leadership were disappearing. Many people willing to take on the role needed skills. Five years after it was created, the fund is still providing mini-training grants to help neighborhood activists take on leadership roles.
Similarly, The Kansas City Star used its Batten money to address the issues explored in its 1996 “Raising Kansas City.” The series looked at 13 core values and how they’re being transmitted to children. The paper donated its award money to a character-education program, Project Essential. Later that year, then-owner Cap Cities/ABC donated an additional $50,000.
This year, the Savannah Morning Newsconvinced its owner, Morris Communications, to match its award and donate it to a new group its project spawned. The News won for “Vision 2010,” exploring school reform. Morris has pledged three years of support for the Savannah Fund for Excellence in Public Education, beginning with $10,000 this year.
Managing Editor Dan Suwyn said the $10,000 prize itself was distributed among staffers, as in 2000, when the paper won for a series on aging. “Especially at a small paper like ours, the staff is underpaid,” Suwyn said.
The Marion, IN, Chronicle-Tribune used the $5,000 it received as a runner-up last year for “Moment of Truth” to create a CD-ROM about the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. Designer Steve Doucette said the disc included the paper’s coverage, President Bush’s speech to Congress and a photo journal of the week. The paper sold about 1,000 for $6 apiece and donated the money to the United Way’s September 11th Fund and a fund to help Afghan children.
A number of news organizations have used the money to continue civic journalism projects or start new ones. After winning a share of the prize in 1998 for its examination of runaway prison construction, an Idaho media coalition used the money for a statewide survey to kick off election coverage.
“We used the survey to guide our coverage,” said Dennis Joyce, then managing editor of The Idaho Statesman (now at the Arizona Daily Star). “One of the things the survey asked for was a list of issue priorities, and we used that to plan issue-driven coverage. Then we had about $150 left and we bought pizza.”
Jon Greenberg, senior news editor at New Hampshire Public Radio, said the network used the money it won in 2000 for its “Tax Challenge” project to hire summer interns. Rosemary Goudreau, Cincinnati Enquirer managing editor, plans to use this year’s award money to help train frontline editors in race coverage.
Len LaCara, managing editor of The Herald-Dispatch of Huntington, WV, said the paper spent about half the $15,000 it won for “West Virginia After Coal” for a poll on city government. He’s keeping the other half in reserve, in case the paper goes over budget on its current civic project about the out-migration of young people from the state.
Using the Batten money to generate new civic journalism seemed appropriate to Peter Ellis, who was managing editor of the Argus Leader in Sioux Falls, SD, when it shared in the first award in 1996. Ellis, now with the Longview (WA) Daily News, put the money into another year of “Community on the Rise,” about the town of Tyndall.
“We’re very proud to be one of the first winners,” Ellis said recently. “People from our little town of Tyndall went to other little towns and got people in other towns thinking [about how to improve their communities]. It was really great.”