Project Topic: Race Relations

Inside Oakland, Oakland, CA 1999

Partners:

UC Berekley Journalism School
The Oakland Post

This project not only provided hands-on training in civic journalism, but it also improved coverage of a community usually overlooked by mainstream media. Eight graduate journalism students, enrolled in Berkeley’s “Covering a Community” course in the spring 1999 semester, produced five editions of a supplement to the black-owned weekly, The Oakland Post, called “Inside Oakland.” They also produced ten 30-minute radio shows (also called “Inside Oakland”) for KALX-FM. Read more

Race Relations in El Paso, El Paso, TX 1998

Partners:

KVIA-TV (ABC) 

In this largely Hispanic town on the Mexican border, the media partners opened a conversation on race, immigration and language with a series built around a poll of 1,008 residents in English and Spanish.

The first step the partners took was to convene a panel of academic and civic leaders, who met almost weekly through December and January of 1997, crafting the language of the poll’s questions. For example, a question on bi-lingual education was changed from “Do you favor ending bi-lingual education?” to “Do you support bi-lingual education?” Read more

The New City, San Francisco, CA 1998

Partners:

San Francisco Examiner 
Maynard Institute for Journalism

After months of ground level reporting, the paper published the first story in the series on April 26, 1998. It was a 175-inch, front page centerpiece that jumped into four inside pages. That first installment also launched a feature called “First Person” that gave people a chance to talk in their own voices. Over the course of the year, the paper published 19 major stories in the series, plus sidebars and “First Persons.”  Read more

Multi-lingual News Programming, BronxNet, Bronx, NY 1998 

Partners:

BronxNet Community Cable
The Bronx Journal
The Multilingual Journalism Program at Lehman College of the City University of New York

In their ongoing and multifaceted effort to give voice to the Bronx’s underserved ethnic communities, BronxNet and the Multilingual Journalism Program at Lehman College launched a multilingual news show and a series of special programs on issues of particular importance to the borough’s residents.  Read more

Special Report on Wrightwood, Chicago, IL, 1998 

Partners:

The Chicago Reporter
WBEZ-FM
WNUA-FM

The Pew Center provided additional funding to allow the investigative monthly to complete its portrait of racial change in the Chicago neighborhood of Wrightwood. The story appeared in the April 1998 issue. For more details, please see Year Four (1997) projects.

Contact:

Laura S. Washington
3750 Lake Shore Dr., Apt. 8-C
Chicago, IL 60613
Phone: (773) 327-4025
Email: lauraswashington@aol.com Read more

Long Beach Beyond 2000 — Unity in Our Community, Long Beach, CA 1997

Partners:

Long Beach Press-Telegram
Cablevision Industries, Inc.
Long Beach Community Partnership
Leadership Long Beach

First, 25 reporters and columnists each hosted three focus group of about 10 people each. They asked open-ended questions about what issues most concerned people, what solutions they’d propose and how government and other institutions could help. From the approximately 750 people participating in the 75 focus groups, six issues emerged as chief concerns: education, safety, neighborhood quality, race, immigration and youth. The findings were used to formulate a survey of 1,400 Long Beach residents, divided into four groups: 350 Asian, 350 African-American, 350 Latino and 350 white. Read more

Racial Change in Chicago, Chicago, IL 1997

Partners:

The Chicago Reporter
WGN-TV
WNUA-FM

The partners drew a subtle and nuanced portrait of Wrightwood, a previously white neighborhood that had become 50 percent African-American fairly quickly in the early ’90’s, as a case study in racial change in a community. The Reporter, a monthly paper that uses investigative techniques to cover race and poverty, led the team, conducting a statistical analysis that showed the impact of racial change on neighborhood schools and home values. Then, reporters added civic tools to their reporting – convening a meeting of 30 civic leaders and ordinary residents to get input and spending months in Wrightwood interviewing and re-interviewing dozens of residents about their concerns, problems and need, about how they get information, about where conflict exists and what is behind it. Read more

Eyes on the Bronx, Bronx, NY 1997

Partners: 

The Bronx Journal
BronxNet
Community Cable
Lehman College
The City University of New York

BronxNet community access cable TV joined forces with the unique Multilingual Journalism program at Lehman College (CUNY) to expand its coverage of this underserved New York borough that, by itself, would have been one of the 10 largest U.S. cities.

Pew funding helped the partners launch “Eyes on the Bronx,” a multimedia effort to cover the Bronx’s diverse communities using civic journalism. A weekly Spanish-language news magazine began airing in April 1997. The cable service also produced periodic specials, such as a 90-minute program on AIDS in the Bronx. The program, “The Changing Face of AIDS,” was produced, in part, by students in the Multilingual Journalism program and was followed by a call-in program, presented on one cable channel in English and simultaneously translated into Spanish on another channel. Bilingual educators and counselors staffed special phone lines and made referrals to appropriate organizations. Read more