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.
George B. Autry President, MDC, Inc.
Barbara Cochran Executive Producer, CBS News Political Coverage
John Robert Evans Chairman, Allelix Biopharmaceuticals
Peter C. Goldmark, Jr. President, The Rockefeller Foundation
Michael Janeway Dean, Medill School of Journalism Northwestern University
Sam Kuczun Professor, University of Colorado
Suzanne W. Morse Director, Pew Partnership for Civic Change
Warren Mitofsky President, Mitofsky International
Adam C. Powell III Freedom Forum V.P., Technology Programs
Richard M. Schmidt Jr. Partner, Cohn & Marks
Roberto Suro Reporter, The Washington Post
Frank Sutherland Editor, The Nashville Tennessean
Space is limited because of the overflow of registrants from the March workshop in Cincinnati, which was attended by more than 80 journalists, so reserve early.
The Pew Center and RTNDF will pick up the costs for two nights' lodging and meals. The only costs for participants are a $35 registration fee and travel. To reserve a spot, call Melissa Monk at the Pew Center, 202-331-3200.
First a confession: I, a former card-carrying member of the National Press Corps, have sinned. I have engaged in "horse-race" and "fuselage" journalism. I have written stories that focused more on campaign tactics than issues. I have interviewed political aides and consultants as if they, and not the voters, should decide the content, if not the very outcome, of an election campaign. I have pretended to know what the country wanted, when in fact I had little or no idea, because I had not really done the hard, precinct-level reporting from which such knowledge might stem.
I am truly sorry and I humbly repent.
So should anyone who is similarly sinning today. For it is clear to me that we who are privileged to call ourselves political journalists have a great deal to be repentant about. The bad habits of what I call "know-it-all" reporting have become so ingrained that many of us have actually begun thinking of them as principles. It is hardly a principle of good journalism, however, to write or broadcast primarily for ourselves, our colleagues and our sources; or to shape our stories in terms of conflict between extremes (abortion is an excellent example), instead of attempting the more difficult task of reflecting the doubts and confusion in the middle; or to employ an arcane jargon -- "spinmeisters," "tracking polls," "soft money," "media buys" -- that alienates our "audience" and drives it away.
Yet today we are doing all of this and more, and our "audience" is moving away in droves.
Civic journalism is, in part, an attempt to replace these bad habits with what are really nothing more than the basics of good reporting: shoe leather, a decent respect for the opinions of others, and a commitment to provide citizens with the information they need to meet the obligations of their citizenship. The Citizens Election Project (CEP), a Pew Center initiative, has been an experiment aimed at testing ways in which these basics may be employed in campaign coverage. With six media partnerships concentrating on four primary or caucus states, CEP has tried to find alternatives to "horse-race" coverage. Although each partnership has its own approach to the problem, they shared certain broad goals: above all, they talked to -- and listened to -- the voters, trying to understand their concerns and priorities and incorporate them into their coverage. They also tried to develop a journalistic "voice" that was neither cynical nor elitist but that addressed the concerns of the voters without lapsing into boosterism or naiveteŽ.
To assist in meeting these goals, CEP commissioned The Harwood Group of Bethesda, Md., and the Pew Research Center for People and the Press (formerly the Times-Mirror Center for People and the Press) to conduct a series of focus groups and "poll-watch" studies. Using this research and results of their own polling and reporting, the partners have provided coverage of the presidential primary campaign that represented a sharp departure from what has become typical of political journalism. Here are some of the highlights:
Both are funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts. The Pew Center for Civic Journalism is an incubator for civic journalism projects around the country.
The Pew Research Center, formerly The Times-Mirror Center, conducts public opinion research surveys to identify public attitudes about the media, examine how values influence political behavior, and track how closely the public follows the major news stories of the month.
The two centers work together to bring a monthly "Poll Watch" report to news organizations involved in the Pew Center's Citizens Election Project.
To receive the Pew Research Center's polls, surveys and reports, contact the center directly: Phone: 202-293-3126, Fax: 202-293-2569. Or access the center's publications on-line: http://www.people-press.org.
And to WSOC-TV, the ABC affiliate in Charlotte, N.C., which won the coveted Jack R. Howard award for journalistic excellence from the Scripps Howard Foundation for the last program in its two-year project, "Carolina Crime Solutions/Taking Back our Neighborhoods." The project was done in conjunction with The Charlotte Observer. The first-place award honors "the best investigative or in-depth reporting of events covered by television and radio stations or cable systems in 1995."
Congratulations also to Kim Alexander, executive director of the California Voter Foundation, who received the James Madison Freedom of Information Award on March 14 from the Society of Professional Journalists, Northern California chapter, both for coordinating the "Your Voices Count" project and for creating the "San Francisco Online Voter Guide."
The Online Voter Guide gives citizens and journalists access to campaign finance information for the mayor and all other 1995 municipal candidates and ballot measures. "This was the first time anywhere in the world that campaign finance data was made available to voters before the election," said Alexander. During the four weeks the on-line guide was active prior to the Nov. 7 election, the site registered 23,000 file retrievals. "One of every four of those retrievals was for campaign finance data, which tells us that people want to know this information," Alexander said.
The Online Voter Guide was funded, in part, by the Pew Center's Citizens Election Project. The site was also recognized by PC Magazine and by Point Survey in New York as among the nation's best Web sites last year. Visit the site at http://www.webcom.com/cvf
TO QUALIFY:
1. Your proposal must entail doing journalism, reporting and news coverage -- not such things as community organizing, block parties, newspaper in education projects.
2. You must have a plan to obtain citizen input on issues or determine the citizens' agenda in your community. Techniques for doing this can include polling, focus groups, survey research, working with existing public opinion data, convening task forces of citizens.
3. You must have other media partners. Your media partnership can be an agreement with other news organizations, preferably the dominant daily newspaper, or commercial television station, or public television and radio, or newspapers, or city and regional magazines.
4. The Pew Center believes it is in the best interests of the public to encourage the broadest practicable participation in any partnerships it helps to fund, consistent with high journalistic principles and sound practices. News organizations receiving Pew Center funding may not exclude for competitive reasons other qualified media partners who ask to join their initiative.
5. You should include a training plan for your newsroom that will help reporters, editors, producers get involved.
6. You should include a budget showing how money would be spent.
7. You should propose how you might evaluate your efforts, in terms of trying to measure what impact, if any, they had on the community. Tracking letters, e-mail, fax, computer clicks, attendance at town meetings, voter results, circulation results, etc.
8. All proposals should be presented via a three to five-page memo or letter, on letterhead.
If Dole had been following the "People's Voice" reports of the Boston Globe, WBUR-FM and WABU-TV in New Hampshire, he would have known in the fall of 1995 that economic insecurity was a major concern for New Hampshire residents.
"It's still the economy," was the lead of Michael Rezendes' article in the Globe Nov. 12, in which he reported on a poll about New Hampshire attitudes and on the first of a series of discussion groups the partnership conducted with citizens in Derry, N.H., a community picked as representative of the state. The view from Washington last fall was that the campaign would revolve around which GOP candidate was best qualified to help House Speaker Newt Gingrich carry through on promises of the Contract with America, including the securing of a balanced budget and a tax cut. But it quickly became clear in the "People's Voice" project that, despite New Hampshire's apparent recovery from the recession of six years ago (its unemployment rate is 3.2 percent), residents of Derry were worried about losing jobs, losing wage levels they had worked hard to attain, losing health insurance and losing the hope that their children would find good jobs. All of these concerns, it was evident, were interwoven with worries about the effects of long work hours on family life.
The two-fold goal of the project was to find and report on citizen views and then challenge candidates to address them. After using in-depth interviews, the poll and issues-discussion groups to get a fix on what citizens were thinking, the media partners brought GOP candidates together with Derry citizens in single-candidate forums and a final "town meeting" event in the week before the primary. Five of the candidates -- Lamar Alexander, Phil Gramm, Richard Lugar, Alan Keyes and Bob Dornan -- met with Derry citizens. Dole, who did not, had to learn from Pat Buchanan what the primary was about, a lesson confirmed in exit polls on primary day showing that the economy and jobs were the issue that most determined how people voted.
The process of discovering and publicizing citizen views about the 1996 election actually began in the summer of 1995. The "People's Voice" partners decided to focus on one community, figuring it would be easier to tap into local concerns by becoming familiar with the problems and pressures of citizens who lived in one town.
After developing a network of contacts in the churches, schools, town offices, workplaces and social-service agencies of Derry, project coordinators next conducted a series of in-depth interviews with citizens to find out what was on their minds and what they thought the 1996 election should be about.
The interviews -- conducted in the homes, shops and offices of Derry residents -- were traditional shoe-leather journalism. They were extremely useful in giving texture and context to residents' views.
In addition, the interviews guided the journalists in the design of an attitude poll subsequently done by Princeton Survey Research Associates in Derry. The interviewing also helped identify residents willing to take part in issues discussion groups and/or candidate forums. Participants for such events were also recruited from poll respondents: The poll's last question asked whether respondents would be willing to take part in such activities with partnership journalists.
The discussion groups on the status of the American dream, family values, the economy, the qualities voters seek in a candidate and campaign advertising were all the subject of articles in the Globe and broadcast segments on WBUR and WABU. In addition, print and broadcast reporters used material from the discussions as starting points for special, related features, including one in the Globe exploring whether trade restrictions would actually help the New Hampshire economy.
Once the interviews, poll and discussion groups had clarified what Derry thought the 1996 election should be about, candidates were invited to sit down with residents of the town and answer their questions. Phil Gramm, Lamar Alexander and Richard Lugar each met individually with a group of five or so at the Pinkerton Academy high school in Derry.
The Alexander forum provided a dramatic test of his campaign theme of "personal responsibility." A questioner -- a middle-aged woman with a full-time job, a family and an ailing aged relative -- objected to the candidate's statement that Republican-proposed changes in Medicare and Medicaid could be dealt with if family members showed more responsibility.
This could, Alexander allowed, "be inconvenient and difficult." But the questioner, worried about the time demands on care-givers like herself, shot back, "Well, I think it's more than inconvenient."
Finally, on the Wednesday before the Feb. 20 primary, there was a town meeting in a school auditorium in Derry. On a snowy night, more than 100 residents showed up to watch five of their fellow citizens quiz Lugar, Dornan and Keyes in the live-telecast meeting. Members of the audience also questioned the candidates. The event lasted just one hour, clearly nowhere near long enough for the panelists, many members of the audience and candidate Lugar, who all stayed around later to keep the discussion going. This was typical of "People's Voice" events: Even when candidates had to take off to meet scheduling deadlines, the citizens would remain to talk among themselves and with the journalists while technicians dismantled the cameras, lighting and audio equipment.
Measured by the enthusiasm Derry residents brought to this project and by the extra dimension it gave to the media partners' primary coverage, it was a success. In addition, material generated by the project served as a basis for newspaper columns and editorials and broadcasting features even beyond those done by the journalists directly involved. But Dole's remark the day before the voting made it clear that "People's Voice" efforts were less successful in getting the candidates themselves to listen closely to what Derry was saying.
In the very first article of the Globe's "People's Voice" series, on Nov. 10, Earl Rinker, the Derry town administrator and a Republican member of the state's elected Governor's Council, said, "I want to hear some positive things about how we can create more jobs, improve the economy and deal with the country's drug problem. I'm all for balancing the budget and cutting government. But that's old news."
With the exception of Buchanan, the candidates did not get the new news, and lost the primary.
Other "People's Voice" coordinators were Tara Murphy for WBUR-FM and Ted O'Brien, news director of WABU-TV.
The paper kicked off its "Leadership Challenge" coverage in January with a series of stories about the dearth of leaders. "Before, the staff had doubts about whether this was a story," said managing editor Jack Brimeyer. "Now they are standing in line for our projects editor" with ideas for coverage. The business news staff, for instance, is exploring any benefits that accrue to businesses that support employees who are community leaders, the religion writer is examining leadership in local churches, and the legislative writer is reporting a package of stories on the price of involvement in political leadership. "It gave shape to some of the things they were thinking about anyway," Brimeyer said.
Mail surveys are seeking input from graduates of the local community leadership training program and are polling local businesses about practices that might encourage or discourage employees from being civic leaders. "I think it's generating a lot of discussion on a lot of levels," Brimeyer said. The partners have plans for two more mail surveys -- of minorities and retirees -- then a broader telephone survey before they invite citizens to problem-solving sessions.
Dayton, Ohio Partners: Dayton Daily News, WPTD public television, WYSO-FM, the Miami Valley Issues Forum, the Montgomery County Historical Museum
Drawing on Dayton's history as a hub of industry and invention in the early 1900's, the partners set the stage for a community dialogue about its future. The newspaper did a series identifying the region's past accomplishments and identifying future challenges. That was followed in January with a 90-minute television documentary and live TV panel discussion and phone-in. "The response was so great after we did the phone-in, the panel will come back again," said Sandee Harden, director of broadcasting, Greater Dayton Public Television, adding that operators could not field all the calls. People called to share ideas, enroll for the next dayÕs issues forum and request copies of the program.
Madison, Wis. Partners: Wisconsin State Journal, Wisconsin Public Television, Wisconsin Public Radio, WISC-TV (CBS) and Wood Communications Group
Once again, the partners sponsored "You be the Judge," an opportunity for citizens to hear the two candidates for State Supreme Court present Òclosing argumentsÓ to a panel of citizens sitting on the justicesÕ bench in the State Capitol. This time, though, they drew on past experience and added a new twist. In last yearÕs exercise, they learned that citizens did not always ask the kinds of questions judicial candidates could answer Ñ especially if the questions concerned an issue that might come before the court. So this time the partners asked two sitting judges for a dozen landmark cases the court had decided in recent years. Citizens then selected which cases they'd like the candidates to discuss as if the candidates had been a member of the court at the time of the ruling. Citizens selected a freedom of speech case involving protesters at a shopping mall; a police search of curbside garbage for drugs; and a separation of church and state case involving a village nativity scene. "These are good cases where people can learn the candidatesÕ thinking," said Tom Still, associate editor of the State Journal.
Coming in late April: the partners will invite citizen input on a hot-button issue -- the future of the University of Wisconsin and its 26 campuses around the state.
Hackensack, N.J. Partners: The Bergen Record, Caucus Educational Corp., TCI of Northern New Jersey, WJUX-FM
"In A Big Jam," The Record's four-part, 16-page in-depth report on why traffic is so difficult in Bergen and Passaic Counties kicked off in March. "It's really everything you wanted to know about why it doesn't work," said David Blomquist, the project's director. Preceding the series, The Record conducted focus groups to gauge the public's level of information on the traffic problem. The stories generated lots of response from readers, who were invited to call voice mail with comments and suggestions. Follow-up focus groups will try to determine what readers learned from the reports. "We know this model works," Blomquist said. The goal is to give readers enough information so "they can make a meaningful contribution" to future discussion about the problem. The Record is planning a "visioning" conference later this year that will bring together the public and experts to discuss the issue. Traffic is the second topic tackled in newspaper's "Quality of Life" civic journalism initiative; the first was education.
Portland, ME. Partners: Portland Press Herald, Maine Sunday Telegram, Maine Public Broadcasting Network, WGME-TV (CBS)
Ethics and morality were on the discussion agenda for 40 Sanford, Maine, residents at their second Citizens Meeting prior to the March 5 primary. Yet the questions they wanted candidates to address dealt with the presidential campaign: What can we do about all the money that is spent in presidential campaigns? Why are there so many negative campaign ads on television?
"I though, oh my God, they got their assignment wrong," said Jeannine Guttman, Press Herald managing editor. "Then I realized that's how they see ethics and morality . . . Politicians think in terms of school prayer but [these citizens] were talking about this breakdown of trust between the public and their institutions."
When Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana later took questions from the group, the citizens asked only about issues. "I thought that was very illuminating," Guttman said. "If we had reporters there asking questions instead, it would have been focused on campaign strategy: What are your polls showing? When are you going to drop out?"
"Maine Citizens Campaign '96" is tracking the deliberations of the group of Sanford citizens for a year. The citizens are gathering once every six weeks to discuss their issues. Between meetings, study circles of 10 citizens meet once or twice for a discussion facilitated by the Maine Roundtable Center.
Binghamton, N.Y. Partners: The Press & Sun-Bulletin, WBNG-TV (CBS), WSKG public television and public radio, SUNY-Binghamton
With their January debut, the partners have begun examining what can be done about massive corporate downsizing in the region. The newspaper has run three-part series in January, February and March, focusing on jobs, and ideas for revitalizing the regionÕs economy and diversifying it. WBNG also has aired a series of stories and WSKG has broadcast two hour-long specials. So far, more than 550 citizens have responded with feedback or volunteered to participate. At a televised town meeting April 18, citizens will meet to discuss ideas for future economic development and sign up for one of 10 action teams on such topics as venture capital, government cooperation, education. The teams will work independently of the media partners through the summer to research solutions and possible actions. Their recommendations will be publicized.
At Binghamton University, 150 citizens in seven focus groups have been discussing what they consider to be the areaÕs economic needs. Meanwhile, in March, hundreds of schoolchildren, grades 3 through 12, began participating in NYLINK, a WSKG project to enable the students to use their school computers to talk to one another about their future. The newspaper plans to publish their responses. Meanwhile, an 18-student High School Task Force will present a report to the public in May.
Cincinnati, Ohio Partners: WKRC-TV (ABC), the Community Press 22 suburban weeklies, Q102-FM and WNNK-FM
Do Cincinnatians want to pay a higher sales tax to build two news sports stadiums: one for the Reds and one for the Bengals? The partners worked to get answers to citizens' questions prior to a March 19 referendum on the issue. WKRC answered two to three viewers' questions on its nightly news broadcasts and its Sunday morning public affairs programs. And every Wednesday, the weekly newspapers answered reader questions about the tax measure. The coverage led up to a televised special March 15. Preliminary results of a University of Cincinnati poll taken earlier in the year are pinpointing other issues that Cincinnatians would like the media partners to cover.
Seattle, Wash. Partners: Seattle Times, KPLU-FM and KUOW-FM public radio, KCTS public television
KCTS-TV has joined the media alliance, which has been underway since the 1994 elections. The partners have hired a coordinator and are developing a statewide poll that will be conducted in April. This yearÕs coverage, which will focus on the presidential and gubernatorial elections, will be launched in May.
Rochester, N.Y. Partners: The Democrat and Chronicle and Times-Union, WXXI-TV public television, WXXI-AM
Talks are underway with a commercial television station that might join the media alliance. Meanwhile, the partners have prepared poll questions for about 370 seventh through twelfth graders about education and violence. They plan to gather the young people in early June for a Youth Summit. The newspapers will do intensive coverage, fleshing out the issues and findings in the poll, all leading up to a televised documentary special in September.
Duluth, Minn. Partners: Duluth News-Tribune, WDSE-TV public television, Violence Free Duluth community organization
In March, the newspaper launched its first installment of a series examining the various ways people are affected by violence and how they learn to be violent, for example through sports, the media, peers, parents. Production also began on a video about violence that would be distributed in the schools. The partners are gathering information for a resource guide that would give the community options for getting involved in doing something about violence.
Tallahassee, Fla. Partners: Tallahassee Democrat, WCTV6 (CBS), Florida A&M University and Florida State University
About 100 Tallahasseans attended "The Public Agenda"'s fourth Community Dialogue on Jan. 30 and immediately broke into discussion groups. Two new groups were formed -- on culture and on traffic -- as a result of a survey after the initiative's first year. The traffic group has since merged with the growth and environment group. The initial education group has split into two groups, one meeting on education and the other on children and values. And the crime group has unveiled its new Web page, which tried to put into understandable language the various punishments for juvenile and other violations. Tallahassee teenagers, meanwhile, are actively working with the city to create a teen center or skate park.
It was a completely superficial event -- for which I hold Dole and his presidential campaign staff half responsible. The other half of the responsibility belongs to me ... er, well, to me as member of The Media.
There were a lot of us Media people there that Saturday and I made a mental note that the next time I went to a campaign event I should bring a TV camera -- not to take pictures, but to whack people upside the head if they dared to get between me and the candidate. Because I'm new, but not brand new, to this business, and because this is my first New Hampshire primary, I attend these events with a split personality.
One side of me is the reporter who needs to get The Quote, the other is an amateur social scientist observing the strange customs of an alien culture. So, as I milled around the crowds, I noticed what more-veteran reporters were writing on their pads. One had written, "Age? It's a concern, but not a deciding factor." You're going to find a lot of us writing about Bob Dole's age, as though this is a legitimate campaign issue. Perhaps it is, but I am pretty sure it doesn't deserve the number of inches of print and the number of minutes of air time that have been devoted to it. It's just that it's simple and everyone has an opinion on it -- or can develop one pretty quickly, without doing a great deal of research. As a reporter looking for The Quote, I appreciate this. But, as a person, this kind of stuff, and how easily we all fall into it, scares me.
We question Dole's age, I suspect, because we don't know enough about what's going on in the government in which he's such a key player.
The question I asked Dole did not come from me but from a group of citizens who were deliberating on economic, family and foreign policy issues at January's National Issues Convention in Austin, Texas. My reason for being with Dole was that he wasn't with the hundreds of citizens there, so I was bringing their questions to him. The question from the group was: "Does the government have a role in re-tooling and re-training a displaced work force, such as the AT&T workers? And, if so, what is it?" Before Dole could answer, his campaign press secretary stepped in and ferried him off to his next speech.
Perhaps my timing was bad, but what I came to see as the day wore on was that the question was as out of place in that setting as if I had asked it in German. It was a question that someone of Dole's experience should get at least a few minutes to answer. And, because of its complexity, it probably would have been necessary to ask follow-up questions to get a true picture of where he stood.
But campaigns don't appear to be about giving true pictures, they're about giving flattering pictures. The other, more experienced reporters did a better job of getting answers from Dole. The most successful questions were designed to test not Dole's knowledge but his ability to quip.
For the record, Dole said he is not afraid of Steve Forbes, he won't let President Bill Clinton blame the Republicans if there's another government shut-down, and he thought the movie "Animal House" was pretty funny.
I knew that to get the citizens' question in front of Dole again I'd have to shorten it drastically and accept a sound bite for an answer. I'd have to do my best Sam Donaldson impression. In the Donaldson school, being a tough reporter means being a loud reporter who appears to be adversarial even when he's playing right into a politician's hands. As a reporter looking for The Quote, I was prepared to do that. But the question was formulated by people who weren't looking for quotes but for answers.
When I got on the press bus after one of the campaign stops, a Washington Post reporter on his first stint through New Hampshire said of Dole, with mild surprise, "You know, he didn't say much of substance." I smiled knowingly, relishing for once being the grizzled veteran who knows what's what.
But what I should have said to my colleague in The Media was, "You know, neither did we."
Nancy Young is the education reporter for The Telegraph of Nashua, N.H. She covered the New Hampshire primary for the Virginian-Pilot, Norfolk, VA.
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 presidential election. To order, call the Pew Center, 202-331-3200. There is no charge for the first copy. Additional copies or bulk classroom orders are $2.95 per copy for postage and handling.
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 effort drew bipartisan criticism from legislative leaders and bipartisan praise from incumbents and those running for office. So far, 145 have signed. Twenty-nine legislators and 116 candidates.
The effort ended a year-long initiative, "Your Voices Count," by about 75 readers of the San Jose Mercury News who got involved in learning about the influence of money on the state legislature after an investigative series more than a year ago documented the problem.
"I believe that legislators really want to do a good job, but to do that, citizens have to let them know what that is," said Rosalie Wolff, an information technology manager from Cupertino, who led her team's effort to draft the statement.
The YVC group formed after the Mercury News and KNTV, the local ABC affiliate, invited readers and viewers to participate in learning about the legislature. For the news organizations, it was an experiment in ways the news media could help citizens engage in public issues.
The group divided itself into teams and the participants set their own agendas. The initiative, which received funding from the Pew Center, was coordinated by the non-profit California Voter Foundation.
"Newspapers usually talk to readers, they don't talk with them," Jerry Ceppos, executive editor of the Mercury News, told the group at an early meeting. "Newspapers usually throw the news against the wall and if some of that sticks -- great. And if it doesnÕt, well, there's always tomorrow's paper."
With YVC, "we want to do more than just throw things against the wall. We want to follow through and see what happens, and see if there are ways that are proper for a newspaper that we can help make things better."
Other YVC volunteers visited Sacramento and met with legislators, sponsored a televised Citizens Inquiry Panel on money in the state legislature, sponsored a town hall meeting with eight legislators attended by 550 citizens, and set up an Internet site at http://www.webcom.com/cvf. The group, however, was not permitted to engage in lobbying.
"One of the basic tenets of public journalism is that a newspaper acts as a facilitator for public issues and those issues may come out of some of the stories that we do," said Jon Krim, the assistant managing editor who spearheaded the effort. "We did not recommend any solutions. Our series did not direct public volunteers to any solutions. We just provided logistical support to some of their activities."
"Part of what we're examining is whether this is a legitimate role for newspapers to play."
YVC's Accountability Team took five months to draft the ethics statement. Their aim was to make legislators more responsive to constituents and less responsive to contributors.
"This document represents our vision of how we want to see our State Legislature conduct its business," said Wolff. "Through this statement of accountability, we hope to set a new tone for a new era in the State Legislature."
YVC participants delivered the pledge twice to each legislator's Capitol office, followed up with phone calls, and mailed the statement to all legislative candidates. They publicized the results at a news conference Feb. 8 on the steps of the state Capitol in Sacramento.
Project director Kim Alexander noted that the effort to sign up legislators and candidates attracted the attention of many other news organizations throughout the state.
Senate Democratic leader Bill Lockyer called the accountability statement a "meaningless pledge," adding that a "corrupt, lying snake" could sign it and "win instant, glowing praise in the newspaper."
Wolff expressed surprise at the vehemence of the criticism. "I did not expect people to find this that hard to accept."
"It seems that if you've got the money, you get the ear of the legislators," said Greg Sherwood, a computer programmer from San Jose and YVC participant. "We can address this problem by letting legislators know our expectations and holding them accountable. We will be watching lawmakers to make sure they keep their word." The techno-savvy YVC members plan to monitor legislators' compliance on-line, made easier in part because, in California, all proposed and enacted legislation can be accessed via the Internet.
Although the newspaper and television sponsorship has ended, the YVC group plans to continue as a legislative watchdog and is exploring the possibility of evolving into a permanent civic organization.
Source: California Voter Foundation