THE CIVIC
CATALYST
NEWSLETTER OF THE
PEW CENTER FOR CIVIC JOURNALISM
JANUARY 1996
Contents
Moving in on the Beat
Creating New Habits
Training: New and Available
Coming Up: Civic Journalism Workshops
America's Struggle Within
Utah Growth Summit Attracts Half-Million Citizens
Poll Watch: Key Pollsters Analyze the Polls
Citizens Election Project
North Carolina: An Unprecedented Partnership
Pew Center's New Projects
Seeking Common Ground
Charlotte: Helping to Lead
All About the Pew Center
Moving in on the Beat
by Richard Chin, Staff Writer, St. Paul Pioneer Press
In my first venture into civic journalism, I woke up in the middle of the
night to slap a cockroach I felt crawling on my forehead. That was the
worst thing that happened.That and having the rear window in my car
smashed in.
Last fall, I was a part of a
team of reporters, photographers and editors doing a project on fear of
crime in the Twin Cities for the St. Paul Pioneer Press. Money from the
Pew Center helped fund some newsroom travel to find out how other
communities were combating crime. It paid for a large survey of Twin
Cities residents on crime concerns. It also paid the rent on an apartment
in Frogtown, one of the neighborhoods in St. Paul with the most crime
problems. I lived there a month, writing a diary of my experiences that
we ran in the
newspaper. I got the idea after hearing that The Charlotte Observer
had
done something similar.
In pitching the idea to my editor, I wrote: "The
cost, I reckon, will be comparable to a couple of the trips we're making
to see what the crime situation is like in another city. Why not see
what it's like here?"
During my month in Frogtown, I saw drug deals,
fights and domestic violence. I heard gunshots. Someone threatened to
beat me up once. I was afraid a few times. But except for the cockroach
and the window, nothing really bad happened to me.
As the month passed,
I found myself less likely to notice the houses that were problems and
more likely to see the majority that were maintained. At the beginning,
I was apprehensive when I saw a group of young men blocking the sidewalk
in front of me. By the end of the month, there was a good chance I had
met some of those men on the street before and interviewed them. Being
able to nod hello made all the difference. Now they were my neighbors.
Many days, I walked the two miles from Frogtown to the newsroom
downtown. Talking to people as I walked, I found lots of interesting
things besides crime: the roosters kept by immigrant families, lending a
rural touch to the center of the urban core; the white cop who spends
his off-duty hours shooting pool in a black bar; white, black and Asian
families complaining about friction between the races even as their kids
played together.We don't get those stories spending our days in the
office, talking by phone to our usual sources. We middle-class reporters
don't live in neighborhoods like Frogtown. Unless we're going there to
cover a crime, Frogtown is usually only glimpsed through the windshields
of our cars as we commute home or head to an interview with someone who
matters.
My experience made me wonder if reporters couldn't follow the
example of police departments who are using community policing to get
their officers out of patrol cars and closer to neighborhoods.Maybe we
reporters should get away from our desks and literally walk a beat in
the community we're covering. I know I want more of my stories to be
about the lives of ordinary people who aren't crime victims or grieving
relatives. I know from my time in Frogtown that they want to talk to us.
And they have some
good stories to tell.That discovery is the best thing that came out of my
first foray in civic journalism.
Creating New Habits
by Ken Doctor, Managing Editor, St. Paul Pioneer Press
It was just another squabble in our sixth-floor conference room. This
time, though, professor Jay Rosen had joined us for a discussion of his
specialty, civic journalism. So a few people -- cloaking themselves in
the First Amendment, their journalism school educations and their
"we-know-more-than-the-people-we-cover" outfits -- turned on this academic
outsider and his unconventional message.
Most of you have heard the
message of Rosen and other civic journalism advocates: We're out of touch
with our communities just when they need help more than ever in finding
solutions to wrenching problems. And we journalists need to find ways to
help.
Looking back on that conference room tiff of almost two years ago, what is most striking is its irrelevance.Doing civic
journalism -- testing our beliefs, trying new approaches -- is the best way
to separate fact from fantasy in this tempest-in-a-teapot debate. Doing
it not only makes us more valuable to our communities, but it teaches us
the limits and the utility of this new tool.
The Pioneer Press is
nearly finished with "Safer Cities," our first major civic journalism
project, and we are deep into planning our second effort -- on
intergenerational conflict. We move into the new venture with a reservoir
of great learning and good experience. Most importantly, we find that our
staff has navigated the academic arguments about civic journalism to
discover some basic truths about our business.And they can't wait to
apply them.As reporter Richard Chin points out, civic journalism engages
reporters and editors in some simple relearning of techniques that many
of us have forgotten: Get close to the people we're covering and tell
their stories.
That use of unofficial sources became a hallmark of "Safer Cities," our close-to-the-bone look at crime and safety in the Twin Cities. It also moved us off the dime of using middle-class, middle-aged white males in power to tell us what
they thought over and over again. Reporters Kay Harvey, Linda Fullerton and Maria Douglas Reeve, who joined Richard in reporting
"Safer Cities" under the direction of Kate Parry, our senior editor for
public interest, found similar truths and have applied them beyond the
project as well.
Kay just won a national award from the American
Association on Aging for a body of 1995 work. It focused not on the dry
public policy debate about Medicare and Social Security, but revealed the
real concerns in the lives of an aging population and those who take care of them.Linda and Maria applied the lessons of "Safer Cities" to a Reinventing Welfare project that got beyond the often-disingenuous speechifying of the usual suspects to look into
the lives of those on welfare. What really works and what doesn't became
clear to our readers as they looked at the issue from the
recipient's point of view.
Now our debate, abetted by the editing and
reporting team that created "Safer Cities," is not whether to do more
civic journalism but how to do it better and more comprehensively. As
editors and reporters, we're applying some lessons of "Safer Cities" to
our 1996 work. What is emerging is a template of a new way of doing
journalism:
Voices: What do the people who are
involved or affected
(especially by emerging public policy) think, believe or want? Let's
hear their voices and
see who they are in photos.
Action: What can we do to
link people to
take action? Make phone calls, join groups, make links between
groups.
Polling: What baseline research -- our own or someone else's -- can
give us an understanding of how people truly feel about an issue? We can
then base our reporting on fact, not
speculation.
Outside: Enough
navel-gazing. What connections can we make to extend our resources, build bridges and create better and more impactful reporting? Our work with Wilder Research
Foundation and KARE-TV on "Safer Cities" did just that.
Inside: Civic
journalism and restructuring have come together at the Pioneer Press to produce a new job, Reader Advocate, whose mandate is to work to multiply the amount and kind of reader feedback
in the newsroom.
Daily Integration: This is the
hardest-to-apply lesson,
breaking old habits of double-arms-length-just-report-the-facts
journalism. We're applying "Safer Cities" lessons to the stories of the
day -- an education-vouchers series coming up
in January, for instance -- and in so doing, we hope to create new
habits. The specific crime and safety findings from "Safer Cities" will
be incorporated into our new Public Safety coverage, set to debut in February. It includes a weekly package of able-
to-act-on information for readers in addition to our daily attempt to provide the context readers tell us they want on crime and safety issues.
Training: New and Available
Civic Journalism: Six Case Studies. This 56-page joint
report by the Pew
Center and the Poynter Institute for Media Studies lets you step into the
newsrooms of six civic journalism partnerships -- alliances of newspapers,
television and radio stations --
to see how their efforts have evolved from initial inspiration to
hands-on execution.The book features three community initiatives: "Taking
Back our Neighborhoods/ Carolina Crime Solutions" in Charlotte, N.C.; "We
the People, Wisconsin" in Madison, Wis.;
and "The Public Agenda" in Tallahassee, Fla. It also examines three 1994
election projects: "The People's Voice" in Boston; the "Voice of the
Voter" in San Francisco; and "Front Porch Forum" in Seattle. All of these
partnerships are building on their experience for the 1996 elections.
To
order, call the Pew Center, 202-331-3200. There is no charge for the
first copy. Additional copies are $2.95 per copy for postage and
handling.
"Civic Journalism" Video. This 33-minute
production, narrated by syndicated
columnist and commentator Hodding Carter III, outlines the philosophy
and some of the techniques of civic journalism. The video shines a
spotlight on two of the most time-tested civic journalism efforts, which
combine public participation with old-fashioned shoe-leather reporting.
In Charlotte, N.C., journalists have linked arms to understand the
problem of crime and to spark a debate about solutions in the community.
In Wisconsin, a statewide effort, spearheaded by media partners in
Madison, has again
and again engaged citizens in such issues as health care, teen concerns
and the state budget.
The video comes with a study guide and the script.
To order, call 1-800-345-9556. The cost is $11.95 each for dubbing,
packaging and postage. Master or Visa cards are accepted.
The
James K.
Batten Symposium on Civic Journalism. This Sept. 13, 1995,
symposium of
top editors and broadcasters launched the annual $25,000 James K. Batten
Award for Excellence in Civic Journalism. Available are a published 32-page
transcript of the proceedings and an hour-long video of the half-day
symposium, which featured David Broder, Washington Post political
correspondent, as keynote speaker; and of the awards dinner, which
featured Hodding Carter III as the keynoter.
To order, call the Pew
Center, 202-331-3200. There is no charge.
Coming Up: Civic Journalism Workshops
The popular civic
journalism workshops
conducted by the Pew Center and the Radio and Television News Directors
Foundation will return this year. Space is limited so reserve early.The first
workshop will be held in Cincinnati at the Omni Netherland Plaza from 6 p.m.
Friday, March 29, through noon on Sunday, March 31. This workshop will target
print and broadcast reporters who are practicing civic journalism or want to
learn how; editors and news directors are also welcome.The second will be held
in Minneapolis from 6 p.m. Friday, June 7, through noon on Sunday, June 9.
This workshop will target assigning editors and news directors.The Pew Center
and RTNDF will pick up all costs for meals and lodging. The only cost to
participants are a $35 registration fee and travel.To reserve a spot, call
Melissa Monk at the Pew Center, 202-331-3200.
America's Struggle Within
The Pew Center commissioned "America's Struggle Within" at the
outset of the 1996 presidential cycle to establish a reference
point for journalists covering the campaign. The report is an
effort to learn what is on people's minds, what their hopes are,
what problems they face and what they think of the political
process and of the news media that will report on the process. It
is based on 15 focus groups conducted last fall by The Harwood
Group in four key primary states -- Iowa, New Hampshire, Florida
and California.
The Pew Center, through its Citizens Election Project, hopes this
24-page report will help the news media better understand what
Americans are concerned about and thus what the real issues of
the campaign are. The following is a summary of the report's
conclusions.
Introduction
There is a struggle within America. People see fundamental
changes taking root in American life and wonder where they will
lead -- for themselves and the nation. As they search for answers,
people fear that they have little control over the responses.
Americans now deeply lament the state of the union. They are
frustrated that the nation has not made more progress on its
concerns, exasperated that America has not changed how it
addresses its common challenges.
This citizen view of the union is significantly different from
1992, the last presidential election year. At that time Americans
forcefully lashed out at the "political system" with raw,
unmitigated anger. Now people seem to be in a more reflective,
introspective mood -- questioning what is happening around them,
fearful of what the future holds, ambivalent about what should be
done.
Common Concerns
People see two fundamental challenges before the nation -- and, to
them, these challenges are inextricably linked. They describe an
economy that has turned into a kind of quicksand -- slowly pulling
some Americans under, fast endangering others. What is more, the
economic rules of society seem to be grossly unfair to them --
from how corporations work with their employees, to who shoulders
the burden of taxes and budget sacrifices, to growing infatuation
with materialism.
Americans with whom we talked are struggling. Questions abound
about economic opportunity and security and the future of the
American Dream. And uncertainty exists about how the nation can
address its fundamental challenge of eroding families and values
in American life.
The questions that people are asking themselves are just
beginning to take form. They have important implications for
basic relationships within society, the nature of personal
responsibility, and the role of government, news media and other
institutions.People are clear on their common concerns, but
they're unsure about how to act on them or are torn over what to
do. They acknowledge that part of the problem has been their own
failure to become involved.
Setting a Different Course
Yet this is only half the story. People do not believe that
America currently has the will and the capacity to tackle the
tough questions that confound the nation. They say that
leadership is nowhere to be found. They see politicians engulfed
by an obsession to win re-election and make personal gains rather
than serve the public. They argue that news media focus too much
on dirt and gossip, and that they have abandoned their public
role to inform people and to act as truth tellers. And Americans
say they have abdicated their own responsibility to the larger
society around them.
As election '96 approaches, these citizen voices suggest that
Americans are searching for a new kind of leadership. They
believe that such leadership must apply not only to politicians,
but to news media, citizens, and others. People argue that basic
changes must occur in how individuals and institutions act if
American is to set the right course for the future.
America's Struggle Within is organized in four sections.
Following the Introduction above are
A Nation Off Course, which explores the challenges that
Americans see for the nation.
Can We Act?, which looks at the role of the news media,
political leadership and citizens in the state of the union.
Nothing Will be Easy or Quick is a brief conclusion
that helps frame people's expectations about change.
Commentary by The Harwood Group explores the report's
observations and its implications, drawing on previous Harwood
Group studies for context.
To order a copy, call Kathleen FitzGerald at the Pew Center,
202-331-3200.
The Harwood Group
conducted 15, three-hour
focus groups from
Sept. 10-18, 1995, at:
Los Angeles, CA
Modesto, CA
San Diego, CA
San Francisco, CA
Jacksonville, FL
Miami, FL
Tallahassee, FL
Tampa, FL
Orlando, FL
Davenport, IA
Des Moines, IA
Mason City, IA
Claremont, NH
Laconia, NH
Nashua, NH
Utah Growth Summit Attracts Half-Million Citizens
by Ed Fouhy, Pew Center's Executive Director
An estimated half a million Utah citizens -- about a fourth of the state's
population -- took part in the biggest civic journalism initiative so far,
the Utah Growth Summit, Dec. 6-8. It focused on three perennial issues
in the fast-growing states of the West -- transportation, land and water
use. All of the state's commercial and public television stations
broadcast a "roadblock" one-hour town meeting on the night of Dec. 6. The
conversation continued on public television and radio stations the
following night for 90 minutes. The broadcasts followed extensive
coverage of the growth issues in the days preceding the summit, in the
state's daily newspapers, on radio talk shows and in both special and
regularly scheduled television news programs. The process continued Dec. 8,
with two hours of discussion on many of the state's radio stations and an
Internet chat with Gov. Mike Leavitt that drew so many people the
computer system crashed.
Utah's unprecedented effort to come to grips
with growth problems began in
July when Leavitt and legislative leaders announced their plan to
engage citizens in the three areas "to create an environment that leads
to legislative solutions."
Three separate working groups, charged with
writing plans to deal with growth, were appointed -- a Republican group,
a Democratic group and one of local government officials. Three days of
hearings were held in November so citizens could provide input.
Additional public comments were solicited through the mail and on a World Wide Web site.
Proposals from the working groups were drafted then made public in
late November and published as special inserts in Sunday newspapers Dec.
3, two days before the summit. The Salt Lake Tribune and Deseret
News, the morning and afternoon newspapers published in the state
capital, as well as smaller dailies around the state, carried extensive
coverage and analysis of the competing plans.
For the fiercely
competitive Salt Lake television stations, seen all over the state
through cable, agreement to suspend normal network programming for a
prime-time hour was a tough sell. Janice Evans, assistant news director
of CBS affiliate KUTV said, "If you're in television today, you know that
local is where it's at. We didn't want to cross the line but we wanted to
be community-minded. . . We saw this, and I guess the other stations did
too, as an opportunity to serve the community."
KUTV not only carried
the
"roadblock" program, it did three half-hour news specials, including its
own town meeting, the night before
the official version. "The summit agenda gave a focus to stories on
growth we had been wanting to do," Evans said.
The broadcasters solved
their competitive problem by agreeing that each station's news department
would contribute one short documentary segment to the program to frame
the issues. To avoid disputes over which station's anchor team would host
the program series, they approached the Pew Center. I was pleased to be
the moderator.
About 600 Utahans attended the town meeting in person on
the first
night, another 300 were at the second night's meeting while news stories
generated by the summit dominated the front pages of the dailies for the
entire summit week. Radio talk programs centered on the summit issues for
much of the week as well, although
one Salt Lake City talk jock used it as a target, calling the summit,
"Just a big waste of electricity."
Leavitt, state senate president Lane
Beattie and other officials who appeared on the TV town meeting were
pleased by the turnout. "I think we finally
found a way to get people's attention," said Leavitt.
Poll Watch: Key Pollsters Analyze the Polls
Beginning this month, the Pew Research Center for People & the Press will
release a series of monthly reports analyzing a wide array of opinion
polls leading up to the November presidential election. Commissioned by
The Citizens Election Project, an initiative of the Pew Center, Poll
Watch will synthesize the results of national and local polls and provide
a critical look at election surveys. Each report will examine three or
four issues in depth, identifying trends in public opinion as well as
highlighting discrepancies in survey results and variations in
methodology.Poll Watch aims to look more closely beneath the surface of
the hundreds of polls released every election year and to educate the
media and the public about survey research evaluation. The
project will be led by Research Center Director Andrew Kohut and survey
analyst Margaret Petrella. Poll Watch reports will be distributed to
CEP's media partners, major news organizations, and an extensive mailing
list. Reports will also be available on
the Research Center's home page at http://www.people-press.org.
Citizens Election Project
by Stan Cloud, Executive Director, Citizens Election Project
Whatever the outcome of the 1996 presidential campaign, the Citizens Election
Project, an undertaking of the Pew Center and the University of Maryland's
College of Journalism, has already demonstrated ways of covering politics that
may help restore voters to their rightful place in the process. To the
extent that the CEP becomes
a model for others, it may also help restore some of the public's flagging
confidence in political journalism.
Highlights of current
activities:
Iowa
The "Voice of the People Project," involving the
Wisconsin
State Journal, the Lee Newspapers, the Waterloo Courier, the Iowa Associated
Press, Wisconsin Public Television and Iowa's National Public Radio
stations,
has conducted a statewide issues poll among citizens; the results were
reported in December. The partners will use those results to frame five
issues seminars for voters in January, culminating in a televised town-hall
meeting Feb. 9.A new Iowa partnership that joins the Des Moines Register,
Iowa Public Television, the Iowa
Communications Network, and the Iowa Department of Education is conducting a
series of video conferences between high school students and the presidential
candidates who are seeking the votes of delegates to the stateÕs nominating
caucuses in February.
New Hampshire
New Hampshire's "Voters'
Voice" project, linking the Nashua
Telegraph with New Hampshire public radio and public television, as well as
the state's Associated Press bureau, is sponsoring a series of meetings
between citizens and the presidential candidates. Each of these meetings has
received extensive coverage in the local press and from AP.The other CEP
partnership in New Hampshire -- among the Boston Globe, NPR station WBUR
and
WABU-TV -- has been covering the voters of Derry, N.H., as they work their
way
through the intense campaigning that leads up to the state's primary,
Feb. 20.
The partners have conducted focus groups with Derry voters and a number of
candidate forums.
California
Two highly successful candidate
debates leading up
to San
Francisco's recent mayoral election were conducted by CEP's Northern
California
coalition of the San Francisco Chronicle, NPR's KQED and KRON-TV, the NBC
affiliate. The debates featured videotaped questions from citizens and a live
panel of three journalists to ask follow-up questions and pose their own
questions. The partners are considering sponsoring a similar debate among
Republican presidential candidates prior to California's March 26 primary.
Florida
The CEP's largest partnership, "Voices of Florida" --
involving most of the state's major newspaper and commercial television
stations and NPR stations -- conducted a statewide poll last fall to
establish
a baseline on issues voters consider important. The partners are now planning
a second poll to track
how those attitudes have changed. Plans are also under way for a candidate
debate prior to Super Tuesday, March 12.Research
The CEP has
also sponsored a
series of 15 focus groups in these four states by The Harwood Group and has
launched a regular Poll Watch feature by the Pew Research Center for the
People and the Press, which will seek to help political journalists and
others make sense out of the usual welter of "horse-race" polls that often
tend to confuse the electoral process.
North Carolina: An Unprecedented Partnership
North Carolina's citizens are about to get a bigger voice in the media's
coverage of elections across the state.The state's largest newspapers --
The Charlotte Observer and News & Observer of Raleigh -- are among more
than a dozen newspapers and broadcast
stations cooperating this year in an unprecedented effort in North
Carolina to focus on issues that matter most to voters. The partnership,
called "Your Voice, Your Vote," will first sponsor a statewide issues
poll to identify the publicÕs major concerns. Those findings will guide
the group on coverage of the most important issues in the races for
governor and U.S. Senate, starting in February.The media organizations
will also jointly interview the candidates about the issues and sponsor
televised candidate forums centered on voters' concerns.
"This builds on
the citizen-oriented coverage that The Observer worked to produce for
our readers in the 1992 national elections -- and other elections since,"
said Observer Editor Jennie Buckner. "We're pleased that so many media
organizations in this state are serious about focusing on the issues of
most concern to North Carolinians. We'll make sure we explore where the
candidates stand on those issues." The six newspapers, five commercial TV
stations, UNC-TV (public television) and several public radio stations
will continue to pursue other political stories separately, including
candidate profiles, additional interviews and campaign developments. In
most cases, a commercial TV station also is working with the
partnershipÕs newspaper in its area to provide additional issues
coverage locally. The Charlotte Observer, for example, is cooperating
with WBTV (Charlotte), and The News and Observer is working with
WTVD (Durham).The Poynter Institute for Media Studies
of St. Petersburg, Fla., is advising the partnership. The Pew Center
for Civic Journalism is providing funding in support of UNC-TV's
efforts.
Other members of the "Your Voice, Your Vote" partnership are:
Newspapers: The Asheville Citizen-Times; The
News &
Record of Greensboro; the Fayetteville Observer-Times; and the
Morning
Star of Wilmington.
Television stations: WGHP, High
Point; WLOS,
Asheville; WWAY, Wilmington.
Public radio stations:
WFAE-FM, Charlotte; WFDD, Winston-Salem; WTEB-FM, New Bern;
and WUNC-FM, Chapel Hill.
Pew Center's New Projects
Portland, ME.
Partners: Portland Press Herald, Maine Sunday Telegram,
Maine Public Broadcasting network, WGME-TV (CBS)
Maine' s largest town,
Sanford, an old mill community, will be the focus of "Maine Citizens
Campaign '96." The partners are trying to develop a model that will allow
people to come together and grapple with local and national issues. They
also seek to track the long-term effects of a deliberative experience and
will use periodic surveys to see how individuals' opinions might shift as
they
deliberate issues in a group setting.The partners have conducted a
random telephone survey of 300 residents and invited 70 to participate in
the year-long project. At their inaugural meeting Nov. 28, participants
were asked to complete a survey and they
brainstormed the top issues facing the county. They overwhelmingly
ranked education first, followed by a decline in values and morality, the
budget deficit and health care. Future plans call for a statewide poll
and community forums.
To the surprise of managing editor Jeannine
Guttman, the participants thanked the media partners for asking what they
thought of the issues. "I was completely blown away by this meeting,"
she said. "If I didn't know I was in a country that had a democracy, I
would have thought I wasn't,"
she said, commenting on the sense of loss
the participants expressed. "They're really in a lot of pain."
Spokane,
WA.
Partners: The Spokesman-Review, Talk Radio KXLY and KGA, Cox
Cable
In "The Ragged Edge" project, the partners plan to focus
on citizen frustration and disaffection in two local communities:
Coleville, a town where timber jobs have disappeared and the Militia
Movement has taken hold of local government; and Bonners Ferry, hometown
of white separatist Randy Weaver, whose wife and child were killed in the
controversial FBI shootout at Ruby Ridge.The project will try to identify
why the region has nurtured such strong anti-government, anti-social
movements and help citizens more constructively engage in their
communities. The
newpaper plans to train civic journalism interns who will report in the
two towns, help set up community forums and encourage citizens to write
commentary in the paper. The project will involve talk-radio audiences in
the discussion and use Cox Cable to broadcast community forums. The
newspaper also will try to use its home page to reach citizens, including
many militia groups who communicate via the World Wide Web, and publish
highlights of on-line chats.
Duluth, MN.
Partners: Duluth
News-Tribune, WDSE-TV
public television, Violence Free Duluth community organization
Men cause
90 percent of violent acts in the United States yet long have been on the
sidelines of community efforts to deal with violence. In "Men as
Peacemakers," the partners are trying to involve men in solutions.
Forty-six men showed up for a retreat in September and more than 100
participated at another public meeting. The partners plan to publish and
air enterprise news stories about violence and how men can prevent it and
produce a 45-minute documentary on the problem, condense it for
distribution to schools and libraries, and hold a televised town forum
that will coincide with a national PBS special "Act Against Violence"
next year. Binghamton, NY.
Partners: The Press & Sun-Bulletin, WS
KG public television and public radio, WBNG-TV (CBS), SUNY-Binghamton
Binghamton has become "the unwitting poster child of corporate and
government downsizing." Cutbacks at IBM, and such local defense
contractors as General Electric, Lockheed Martin, and
GM Hughes Training have contributed to the loss of 14,300 skilled
manufacturing jobs since 1988, about 38% of the jobs that once paid at
least $35,000 a year. As these cuts rippled through the community,
service businesses have been struggling and house
prices have plummeted.In "Facing our Future: Helping the Southern Tier
Re-Invent Itself," the partners hope to get the community talking and
moving toward solutions to alleviate the economic crisis through
deliberative focus groups and on-line discussions. The kickoff is
planned for early January.Rochester, NY.
Partners: The Democrat
and
Chronicle and Times-Union, WXXI public television and WXXI-AM
As a
follow
to their successful "Grading our Schools" and "Upgrading our Schools"
efforts, the partners this
year plan to spotlight children's attitudes toward education and
violence. As part of their research, they will interview more than 300
youths from seventh grade through high school, expand the use of computer
chat rooms that could overcome possible barriers for young people such as
bashfulness or lack of transportation. And they plan to hold a
two-session Monroe County Youth Summit, one involving young people and
one including adults, that would be taped and edited for later broadcast.
One focus would be how much responsibility young people take for their
own lives.They also plan to give 20 young people disposable 35 mm
cameras to make photo essays of their day-to-day lives that would be used
in the newspaper, on television and as part of the summit.
San Jose,
CA.
Partners: San Jose Mercury News, KPIX (CBS), KIVE and KARA radio,
Santa Clara County Libraries
The "Common Ground" project began as a
partnership between the Mercury News Editorial Board and Santa Clara
County public libraries that sought to encourage public discussion on
controversial topics and create public spaces where those discussions
could occur. In 1995, more than 1,000 people participated in public
forums on affirmative action and on revising California's constitution.
This year the project will develop what has become a statewide consortium
with similar efforts by the Los Angeles Times, the San Diego Union and
other newspapers working with local broadcasters and area libraries to
foster discussion on such issues as race and schools.Peoria,
IL.
Partners: The Journal Star, WMBD-TV (CBS) and WMBD-AM, WTVP (PBS),
WCBU-FM (NPR), Illinois Central College of Peoria, Bradley
University
When so few people signed up for a community leadership
program that it was cancelled, Peoria knew it had a
problem. Other anecdotal evidence has raised concern about the dearth of
people willing to run for office or volunteer for community service work.
In "The Leadership Challenge," the partners aim to focus Peoria's
attention over the next year on the apparent decline in the quality and
quantity of leaders at all levels. The project also hopes to involve the
public in seeking ways to nurture more and better leaders for the future.
Through mail surveys of four groups -- potential leaders, community
organizations, employers and retirees -- and through telephone
questionnaires of the public at large, the partners hope to report on the
problem and possible solutions. Cincinnati, OH.
Partners:
WKRC-TV (ABC), Community Press' 22 suburban weeklies, Q102-FM and WNNK-
FM
"Voices of the People" kicked off on May 31 with news stories and
reader and viewer call-ins. The goal is to empower citizens by making
sure their voices are heard. With no research funding immediately
available, news staffers each called 10 people in
the phone book to discuss needs and issues that affect their lives. In
July, Channel 12 took the project on the road every Thursday, doing its
entire 5:30 p.m. news hour on location. Each newscast was followed by a
forum that generated a number of news stories. With a research grant
awarded in August from the Radio and Television News Directors
Foundation, the project will conduct with the University of Cincinnati a
poll of 1,000 residents to identify issues most important to readers and
viewers. This year, an aggressive schedule of town hall meetings to
discuss the issues and such forthcoming ballot questions as public
funding of two sports stadiums are planned.St. Paul,
MN.
Partners:
St. Paul Pioneer Press, KARE-TV (NBC), Wilder Research Center, Minnesota
Public Radio
Never has there been a time of greater change -- social,
technological, workplace -- in the nation, and the ties that bind
different generations are coming loose. In "What Do We Owe Each Other?"
the partners plan to examine how the widening
divide between generations is playing out in individual families, in
communities and in the nation's politics. The partners plan to explore
what people in different generations want and what they are willing to
fund. Then they will examine the funding issues that often set one
generation against another, such as school funding, health care funding,
Social Security, Medicare and deficit reduction. The research will be
done through polls, forums and community-assisted reporting on the
money-transfer issues.
San Francisco, CA.
Partners: KQED-FM (NPR), San Francisco
Chronicle,
KRON-TV (NBC)
The two-year-old "Voice of the Voter" partnership will
build on the momentum of its election efforts with its first
non-electoral project: exploring the complex transportation issues in the
Bay Area. In their fact-finding stage, the partners will explore San
Francisco's failing Municipal Railway bus system, Alameda County's
bankrupt transit system, the coordination gap among the Bay Area's 20
separate transportation entities, the precedent set by Orange County's
diversion of transit funds to bail out its failing health care system,
and the new requirement that voters approve by a two-thirds majority any
sales tax increases for transportation projects. Citizen input will come
through public forums to define the issues and map out how citizens can
get involved. Charlotte, NC.
Partner: The Charlotte
Observer
Civic
journalism is more than a project; it's a mindset. That's the way The
Observer, a long-time civic journalism practitioner, sees it. And the
paper proposes to spend 1996 figuring out how to apply the values of
civic journalism to the coverage of daily news.Under the direction of
Rick Thames, the paper's new Public Editor, The Observer proposes to
conduct eight to 10 demonstrations of "daily" civic journalism. The paper
envisions these demonstrations coming off daily news developments or
ongoing conversations in the community and they would include such civic
journalism techniques as citizen deliberation, polling, "listening
posts," focus groups and televised town forums. Ultimately, the lessons
learned will be published in a "best practices" guide.
Norfolk,
VA.
Partners: The Virginian-Pilot, The Harwood Group
The paper will
build on the focus groups conducted by The Harwood Group last fall as
part of the Pew Center's Citizens Election Project. The goal is to
develop a deliberative poll that would help citizens in such non-primary
states as Virginia connect to the public discourse in states where the
presidential primaries are most influential. Harwood would develop the
deliberative poll. It would address the choices citizens face on
important issues, their visions for the future, and their attitudes
towards the presidency and governance. The deliberative poll will be de
signed to help citizens set the national agenda and help the next
president fulfill citizensÕ vision for the future. The exercise will also
result in a case study paper on the differences between a deliberative
and a market-based poll. Madison, WI.
Partners: Wisconsin
State
Journal, Wisconsin Public Television, Wisconsin Public Radio, WISC-TV
(CBS), Wood Communications Group
The long-running "We the People/
Wisconsin" project is receiving funding to hire a full-time project
director to help with the rapid
growth and success of the project and respond to new civic journalism
opportunities. The partners at least once a quarter have involved
citizens in various issues -- through news reports, town meetings and
various civic exercises. Since late 1992, they have hosted nearly 30 town
hall gatherings and produced nine statewide broadcasts. The project also
has served as a catalyst for independent local media initiatives in
Racine, Wausau, Eau Claire and Beloit. The project director will help
with outreach, recruitment of town hall participants, customizing
programs to best benefit the public, spreading the concepts to at least
four other Wisconsin communities and extending the "shelf life" of the
programs and reports through transcripts of broadcasts and reprints of
news articles and other informational materials.Tallahassee,FL.
Partners: Tallahassee Democrat, WCTV6 (CBS), Florida A&M University
School of Journalism, Florida State University Center for Professional
Development
The Pew Center is funding Year Three of "The Public
Agenda" project, which set out to help Tallahasseans discuss key issues
and reach consensus on common problems. According to the partners,
citizens have started taking charge of the process. For instance, the
race relations discussion group in October set up an affirmative-action
discussion/ call-in program on public television. Administrators of the
state court system have approached the partners about helping to involve
the public in planning for the future of the court system. The second
annual survey of citizens concerns has been released and more people are
joining discussion groups. The project is also taking part in the "Voices
of Florida" civic journalism presidential election effort.Seattle and
Tacoma, WA.
Partners: The Seattle Times, KPLU-FM and KUOW-FM (NPR),
KCTS-TV (PBS)
The "Front Porch Forum" alliance has added a television
partner and is receiving funding to hire a project coordinator to help
deal with the logistics of organizing public events, citizen interaction
and fundraising.After developing a successful election project in 1994
and working together last year on a multi-billion dollar transit vote and
votes on two local tax measures, the partners plan to try to give
citizens input on several national and regional issues, including the
campaigns for president and governor, and tax measures for schools,
housing, parks and transit.
Myrtle Beach, SC.
Partners: The Sun
News, Cox
Cable, The Palmetto Project
The partners are receiving a planning grant
to develop a project on
the so-called "New Racism," to examine discrimination by whites against
not just African-Americans, but all races. The partners are trying to
develop their reporting model, and their plans for a poll and focus
groups to discuss the findings and work on
solutions.Tampa, FL.
Partners: WTVT 13 (Fox), The Weekly Planet
alternative newspaper, WNMF Community Radio, The National Conference,
Tampa Bay chapter
A planning grant will help the partners set up a
system of listening posts, such as forums and study circles, town
meetings or roundtables, plus plan for polling and other research to help
identify and report on community issues and stimulate a civic dialogue on
those issues.
Seeking Common Ground
For the past two years, the Tallahassee Democrat and WCTV (CBS) have
been engaged in a civic journalism project, "The Public Agenda," to get
citizens talking and deliberating about key issues. The lessons of that
undertaking prompted the city desk to think about using some civic
journalism techniques when citizens on Oct. 17 decisively rejected a
referendum to increase the local sales tax to fund school improvements.By
Bill Berlow, Deputy City Editor, Tallahassee Democrat
A few weeks
after the Oct. 17 referendum there was very little follow-up at the
school-district level. In fact, one district administrator, asked what
happens next, told us, "Nothing." It struck me that none of the major
players on either side of the sales-tax issue was really carrying on a
dialogue of any sort. I had a sense that there may be an opportunity to
do some kind of civic journalism story, but my thinking was quite vague
and unformed. After some brainstorming with others, reporter Marlo Roache
and I developed a common-interview framework that was designed
specifically to identify what four of the key players in the debate
agreed on -- where they shared common ground. Obviously, each interview
varied somewhat, but each of the activists was asked the same questions,
in the same order. On one side, they included a parent-critic of the
school district and the leader of the group that catalyzed the sales-tax
opposition; on the other, a parent who led the campaign to pass the tax
and the school board chairman.
How do I think it worked?
Frankly, I was thrilled with the outcome. Granted this was an unusual
set of circumstances in that there was really no dialogue, and obviously
no movement toward a solution to the problems the sales-tax debate laid
bare. So the newspaper was truly able to serve an important role, by
facilitating dialogue where there was none.
In developing the interview
questions, it was clear to Marlo and me that this was, indeed, a
different kind of journalism. Rather than seeking the points of
disagreement and conflict, we were consciously doing exactly the
opposite.
"As a reporter on this project, I was excited by the fact that
this wasn't business as usual," Marlo said. "I had talked to many of
these key players before and was very clear on where they disagreed on a
number of issues. But as I reported on the common ground piece, I was
encouraged by the fact that these people actually agreed on a number of
very fundamental issues. Once I discovered that, I had to look at my role
as a reporter in a slightly different way.
"I decided to tell the
story in
such a way as to highlight -- for the public and for the key players
themselves -- where their views merged. I think most people who read the
article appreciated the sense of commonality the story brought. Now
whether they decide to act upon it, that's another story altogether."
What emerged was perhaps not revolutionary -- the common ground the four
people shared was a belief that we need to do a better job teaching the
basics to school kids -- but it showed that there were some important
educational values they shared. That was significant because there had
been so much vitriolic rhetoric during the campaign that many people --
the interviewees included -- may have been surprised that there was any
common ground at all between the pro- and anti-tax camps. What can we
learn from this story? A few things, I think:
While it's not always a
substitute for traditional interviewing and reporting techniques -- it is,
after all, important to tell readers about conflict and disagreement on
public-policy issues -- we might do well to consider this as a
supplementary device. Why, for example, shouldn't we also try to
determine where major players (or just plain folks) agree on an issue of
public concern? It's second-nature -- for
the players as well as the journalists -- to identify their areas of
disagreement; it's harder to find the common ground. If we can help
facilitate that process without abandoning our traditional
responsibilities, then it can only promote further and deep
er examination of the issues. Nothing but good can come from that.
This
approach forced Marlo and me to re-examine our roles as journalists.
Rather than just giving people information, we were creating
opportunities through our story for a dialogue where
there had been none. I'm firmly convinced that our story, coupled with
"The Public Agenda"'s independent effort, were the only things that
brought the two camps together to discuss the future of our
schools.
Finally, I think we were able to show that civic journalism
isn't pandering -- that it is, in fact, good journalism. Marlo's story was
reported and written in four working days, including four interviews,
each an hour and a half to two hours in length. The story included other
reporting as well.
From
a personal perspective, it was invigorating and meaningful, in that I
felt we were, if you'll excuse the clicheŽ, truly making a difference. As
I told Marlo after the story ran, we led the horses to water; now it's up
to them to decide whether or not to drink.
Charlotte: Helping to Lead
The Charlotte Observer and its media partners have recently
finished an 18-month project, "Taking Back our Neighborhoods," of
in-depth reporting on crime in nine central city neighborhoods.
The project, which teamed The Observer with ABC affiliate WSOC-TV
and radio stations WPEG-FM and WBAV-AM/FM, met with a number of
successes. In the first neighborhood, Seversville, violent crime
is down 19 percent over two years. In other communities, houses
have been fixed up, neighborhood eyesores have been torn down,
and the city has developed a program to help the private sector
get involved. And hundreds of citizens volunteered to help out,
following road maps or needs lists made public by the media
partners.
For many, the series was a rude awakening, said the projectÕs
community coordinator, Charlene Price-Patterson. For others, it
was a call to action. Countless times, Patterson said, people
told me, "I didn't know things were like that in Charlotte."
Still, many problems remain and, in some of the communities,
violent crime continues to post double-digit increases.
by Charlene Price-Patterson, Community Coordiantor, "Taking Back our
Neighborhoods"
Before we wrapped up our series, we wanted to provide something
long lasting for the people in the communities. So, the
Observer's Editorial Board, working with a group called
Grassroots Leadership and with Central Piedmont Community
College, organized a two-part leadership training program.
On Oct. 28, we sponsored a bus tour of all nine neighborhoods for
42 residents. The tour gave the participants a chance to see
firsthand each neighborhood, and a spokesman from each area
served as a tour guide, talking about the battles the
neighborhood had won or lost.
Each neighborhood had a lesson to share. It was a wonderful
networking opportunity.
Part two of the program involved a day-long leadership workshop
held at the college Nov. 11. Residents got training in role
playing, resolving conflict, running effective meetings, action
planning and other skills. And 120 officials and community
leaders from Charlotte participated in the luncheon.
Many of the participants were struck by the similarities of their
neighborhoods. Said Seversville resident Catherine Simpkins:
"We're all working for the same purpose Ñ to make Charlotte a
healthier place to be in."
"What surprised me was that so many people stayed until the end
of the day and then asked for more," said Maria Henson, the
editorial writer and columnist who helped oversee the effort.
"They seemed to find real value in it. That's what made me feel
good."
Henson said the paper had some reservations in embarking on
the program. "We had some shakiness all the way through because
itÕs not our normal venue."
However, she said other organizations, not The Observer, did
the leadership training. The paper is hoping that, in the future,
other groups will pick up the ball and carry on the effort.
All About the Pew Center
The Pew Center for Civic Journalism was created as the
centerpiece of The Pew Charitable Trusts' initiative, "Renewing
our Democratic Heart," to stimulate citizen involvement in
community issues.
The project partners several major print and broadcast news
organizations, helping them reconnect to their communities so
they can engage their citizens in dialogues that lead to problem
solving.
Major partners are the Radio and Television News Directors
Foundation, Knight-Ridder Inc. newspapers, and The Poynter
Institute for Media Studies. The Tides Foundation of San
Francisco administers the project.
The Pew Center works closely with news organizations in
developing civic journalism initiatives, in evaluating these
projects and in training journalists in the techniques of civic
journalism.
The Pew Charitable Trusts are a group of seven individual
charitable trusts established between 1948 and 1979 by two sons
and two daughters of Joseph N. Pew, founder of the Sun Oil Co.,
and his wife, Mary Anderson Pew. The Trusts, a national and
international philanthropy with a special commitment to
Philadelphia, support non-profit activities in the areas of
conservation and the environment, culture, education, health and
human services, public policy and religion. Through their grant
making, the Trusts seek to encourage individual development and
personal achievement, cross-disciplinary problem solving and
innovative, practical approaches to meet the changing needs of
society.