Civic Journalism: The Savior of Newspapers in the 21st Century?
Keynote address by Chris Peck, Editor, The Spokesman Review, Spokane, WA at the Pew Center Luncheon, AEJMC Convention, Aug. 1999. 20 pages.
Yearly Archives: 1999
Hunger in the Land of Plenty (The Charlotte Observer, NC)
By Pat Ford
Pew Center
They had a deceptively simple goal, the team that produced The Charlotte Observer series “Hunger in the Land of Plenty.” They wanted to answer the question, “Why is there still hunger?”
Editor Steve Gunn (then projects editor, now metro editor) says the question haunted him after driving a van full of homeless people to a shelter in the boom town of Charlotte, where unemployment was 2.4 percent. He enlisted Jeri Fischer Krentz, who covers non-profit agencies for The Observer. She teamed up with reporter Blair Robertson and photographer Patrick Schneider to get to the human turmoil at the bottom of Gunn’s question.
Through a Child’s Eyes: Motel Children (The Orange County Register)
An Unconventional New Tool:
Dialogue Connects Readers with Suffering Children
By Pat Ford
Pew Center
“I’m hungry. When does the bread people come?” — Bobby, age 3
“Don’t you know a lot of people die here?” — Jimmy, age 10
“They’re taking our daddy away.” — Lovon, age 4
“Didn’t anybody ever tell you life isn’t fair?” — Angelica, age 4
These are the voices of the “Motel Children,” some of the hundreds of children living lives of deprivation in tourist-turned-residential motels across the street from Disneyland (“The Happiest Place on Earth”).
Linking Community Groups Via the Web
Peaks Island, in the Casco Bay off Portland, Maine, is accessible only by ferry. It's a lovely community of about 1,000 year-round residents but you wouldn't read a lot about it in the local paper, the Portland Press Herald.
The Media and Civic Engagement
June 22, 1999, Northern California Grantmakers Conference, San Francisco, CA by Jan Schaffer, Executive Director Pew Center for Civic Journalism
Pew Center for Civic Journalism Renewed
Present Tense, Past Tense: The Historical and Philosophical Roots of Civic Journalism
By Mike Dillon, Ph.D. Department of Communication Duquesne University
On-Line Ventures
New Hampshire Public Radio and The Gazette in Colorado Springs experiment with new ways to increase citizen interactivity and engagement through their web sites.