Yearly Archives: 2000

Health: Making a Difference in Allentown (The Morning Call)

 in Spotlight

Health: Making a Difference in Allentown

By Pat Ford
Pew Center

They may not read every word of every story but there will be veryfew readers of The Morning Call who aren’t at least aware of”A Change of Heart,” the newspaper’s ambitious project to lower heartdisease in the Allentown, PA, area. 

The Morning Call has promised stories on the topic everysingle day for three years. In addition, the paper has receivedfunding for special events, such as health fairs, to promote theproject and measure its impact. Read more

Pew Center for Civic Journalism Supports 16 News Experiments

 in Press Releases

“Sim City”-like mapping tools herald new avenues for community reporting

Education, Sprawl, Community Publishing are Key Concerns

Washington, D.C., November 9, 2000 — Clickable maps of undeveloped waterfront. Smart Growth maps of a coastal resort. Online cancer risk calculators. Webcams in Spanish-speaking homes. These are among 16 new ideas to help newsrooms engage their communities that will receive funding next year from the Pew Center for Civic Journalism.

Among the initiatives receiving some support are reporting projects that will involve the community on the state of education, growth and sprawl, medical research, growing Hispanic communities and hard-to-reach youth communities, the Pew Center announced today. Read more

New Video Kit: A Journalist’s Toolbox

 in Spotlight

“A Journalist’s Toolbox” Building Better Journalism
New Pew Center Videos Sharpen Core Routines and Reflexes

Practical tools to help journalists learn about what’s happening in their communities and do a better job of reporting the news are spotlighted in a new set of four training videos from the Pew Center for Civic Journalism.

Each 13-minute video describes deliberate strategies that reporters, editors and producers around the country are using on a daily basis to conduct better interviews, tap new sources, discover new stories and report them better. Read more

Whose Choice?:The Akron Beacon Journal looks at school choice

 in Spotlight

By Pat Ford
Pew Center

LEFT: Children arrive for school at Eagle Heights Academy in Youngstown, one of dozens of charter schools opened after the Ohio legislature paved the way for diverting state education dollars to privately operated schools.

The language sounded so innocuous, it was easy to overlook. Slipped into a 1998 bill that massively overhauled academic standards for Ohio public schools were several paragraphs that allowed charter schools to open in all major cities and to go directly to the state board of education for approval. Read more

The New Face of Minnesota – St. Paul Immigration Project

 in Spotlight

Bringing New Immigrants into the Debate

By Pat Ford
Pew Center

The traditional picture of Minnesota as the land of earnest, fair-haired Norwegians and Swedes has been cemented by humorist Garrison Keillor through his nationally broadcast radio show, “A Prairie Home Companion.” So a visit to Roosevelt High School in Minneapolis might be a startling revelation. About one-third of the student body is made up of Somali teenagers who’ve immigrated in the last few years. 

Of some 40,000 Somalis living in the United States, at least 15,000 live in Minnesota, state demographers say. And no one has been more surprised at this new phenomenon than Minnesotans themselves. Read more