Summer 2002
Ten Take-Away Ideas for Civic Coverage
By Jan Schaffer
Pew Center
Executive Director
More than 200 people at this year’s Batten Awards celebrated a decade of civic journalism accomplishments. They were proud; they were energized.
As Buzz Merritt, former Wichita Eagle editor, proclaimed, we created laboratories for newsroom experiments, venues for people to participate, new platforms for interactivity and hope for a future filled with promise for both journalists and citizens.
But there was some hand-wringing at the planned sunsetting of the Pew Center at year’s end.
“We’re only just starting this,” said Rosemary Goudreau in accepting The Cincinnati Enquirer’s award for its first civic journalism initiative. “It’s only now getting on our radar screen. And, hey, this is pretty interesting stuff.”
So, with this issue, I offer a high level of optimism that civic journalism – by that or any of its other names – is secure for the future. And some take-away tools you can use, even in these thin economic times.
Be assured that local news, for most regional news outlets, is where it’s at. News consumers can easily go elsewhere for their sports scores, their stock market agate, their international news – even their weather and entertainment news.
But there are not many options for knowing and really understanding what’s going on in your local community – unless news organizations relinquish their local franchise.
As civic journalists have learned, news is more valuable, not when it reports incremental updates, but when it helps connect the dots on issues of concern. And when you invite people to get involved, they will – if they see an easy way to do it.
News also gains value if it’s useful – if people can apply it to their daily lives, use it to solve a problem or help make sense of the world.
Now it’s time for civic newsrooms to tap the capacity that already exists in their own communities to enrich their journalism. Here are some take-away tools:
Take-Away Ideas
- Can’t afford a big poll? Build your own polling enterprise by connecting with a local university. The Savannah Morning News works with a marketing professor at Georgia Southern University and his students, who take wide and deep surveys – 50 questions, 800 respondents – on key issues. The students get hands-on experience (and a connection with the newspaper), the paper gets rich input – and people respond when they learn it’s for a student project.
- Don’t have the manpower to do civic mapping? Team your reporters with students for the legwork. The News-Star in Monroe, LA, fielded five student-reporter teams to map neighborhoods around local schools for stories on why elementary students were failing high-stakes tests. For many of the college students, it was their first exposure to a newsroom. They even helped invite people to a town hall.
- Need even more legs on the street? Try retrofitting some old computers with survey software to turn them into portable computer kiosks. The Missoulian invites people to respond to simple questionnaires.
- Tired of repetitive “what’s wrong” coverage?Try a series on “what’s right.” Journalists tend to focus on problems and overlook community resources, but a little asset mapping, like The Eagle-Tribune’s candid look at “Unrealized Assets” in Lawrence, MA, can motivate involvement.
- Focused on giving people what they “need to know”? Frustrated when they don’t “get” it? Try creating “A-ha” moments for your busy readers and distilling, in a simple box, the “Local Impact.” The Virginian-Pilot calls these navigational tools WIMTY (What it Means to You) boxes.
- Want some more panoramic views? Hand out some disposable cameras and invite people to share their lens on a problem – crumbling schools, environmental damage, race relations. The Portland (ME) Press Herald posted the results in an online photo gallery by and for teens.
- Need to get your old-timers reacquainted with your newcomers? Invite a local urban geographer or neighborhoods expert to give your staff a tour of the big changes in town. A San Francisco State professor helped open the eyes of former Examiner staffers to the “New City” in their midst.
- Want to add some longer “legs” to your enterprise? Share it with all the media in your state. That kind of cooperation drew the state legislature’s attention to two Huntington, WV, Herald-Dispatch efforts.
- Tired of town hall meetings? Rethink your interactions with citizens: Pizza parties (Spokane), action teams (Binghamton, NY), study circles (Portland, ME), mock juries (Seattle), economic summits (Myrtle Beach) or community breakfasts (Philadelphia) – there are many ways to freshen participation.
- Finally, want to be cool? Invite the engineering or computer science department of your local university to help you build software for a game or an interactive map on a key issue. That’s what the University of Wisconsin did for the “We the People/Wisconsin” media partners.
What’s important in all these endeavors is to do your journalism, not for other journalists, but to do your journalism so that it engages ordinary people.