Civic Journalism Is… True Stories from America’s Newsrooms
Civic Journalism Is…
About connecting with the reader.
Mike Fancher
VP and Executive Editor
The Seattle Times
For years, we wrote about the right topics but in the wrong way — in ways that didn’t connect to the daily lives of our readers. So we didn’t give them the information that they needed, that they could use. Our definition of civic journalism is that it connects the reader and the community more directly to the journalistic process of formulating stories and asking questions.
We use different approaches. One is the “Front Porch Forum.” We’ve asked people to have a conversation with their neighbors about issues such as growth and the future of the Puget Sound region — and then tell us what they said. We found that people in this community understand issues with a level of sophistication that’s beyond what we might have guessed. They contribute.
Our staff is energized by this. At first, they were apprehensive. They asked good, honest questions, like: “Will we be setting aside our journalistic independence or journalistic oversight if we invite the community in?” The thing that is energizing is that when you bring readers into the conversation, there is this sense they really do care about the things journalists want them to care about and they value the opportunity to join the dialogue.
Journalists worry that paying attention to what readers want really means moving to the lowest common denominator, or making journalistic judgments by polling or marketing. When they realize that, in fact, readers value the role of the newspaper in their community, it never fails to be an uplifting experience.