Newspapers and broadcasters increasingly are forming civic journalism partnerships to research and report on topics important to their communities. These in-depth reports generally include ways for citizens to generate their own ideas, recommendations and solutions to problems.
The Pew Center for Civic Journalism and The Record newspaper of Hackensack, N.J., today released a study showing that nine weeks and 54 full pages of issues-based coverage in the 1996 New Jersey Senate race failed to break through the noise of that heated, television-saturated campaign.
Respondents to new survey positive on campaign media coverage
Washington, D.C., December 1996 – A civic Journalism project devoted to issues-based coverage of the North Carolina Senate and gubernatorial races caught the attention of one in four voters of the state, according to a statewide survey of registered voters in North Carolina taken immediately after the November elections.
Of those voters who recognized the project, more than 80 percent viewed it “favorably” or “very favorably.”