Civic Journalism Is… True Stories from America’s Newsrooms
Civic Journalism Is…
About getting people involved.
Jerry Ceppos
Knight Ridder Vice President for News
Former Executive Editor
The Mercury News, San Jose, CA
When I think of civic journalism, I think of ideas that help citizens get involved. It sounds corny, but it’s a pretty high calling. If you can figure out a way to help people get involved in changing their communities, you help them — and you help your newspaper.
Some of the best civic journalism grows out of traditional journalism. For example, we did a series on how lobbyists greatly influence our state legislature, a pretty traditional story. But then a non-profit group picked up where we left off and taught people how to get involved if they wanted to change the way the legislature conducted business.
We followed their progress and had a couple of public hearings. It was controversial. We may have gone a step further than some journalists found comfortable. But the series shed light on something people didn’t know was happening, and the follow-up activities taught them how to improve things if they wanted to.