Yearly Archives: 2000

Lexington Builds Common Ground on Growth

By Pat Ford
Pew Center

When Pete Baniak began covering development for the Lexington Herald-Leader, he never thought it would lead to a second career in pizza delivery. But that’s what happened when he tried to find the common ground in the divisive public debate over growth in “the Bluegrass,” the area around Lexington.

The eight-part series, “Common Ground, Deciding how the Bluegrass Should Grow,” took an extensive look at the history of development in the region, ideas for limiting growth and the pros and cons of a plan to allow local government to purchase development rights for farmland.  Read more

Stormy Weather

By Pat Ford
Pew Center

Just as sure as the sunshine and warm weather will bring tourists to Virginia Beach, residents of the Hampton Roads area of Virginia know, it will also bring storms, hurricanes and, by August, the threat of major floods.

Situated at the junction of the Atlantic Ocean and the Chesapeake Bay, the area is extremely vulnerable to storms. And for The Virginian Pilot, bad weather is a major story. 

The paper doesn’t even wait for a storm to hit. Just before hurricane season starts in earnest, The Virginian-Pilot runs a special section with tips for staying safe, protecting your home and, across the double-truck of its center page, a map of the entire area, color-coded to show which neighborhoods are most likely to flood and by how much. Read more

New resources from the Pew Center

For newsrooms and classrooms — for a free copy of the newest Pew Center resources, call 202-331-3200 or e-mail news@pccj.org

New book: “Tapping Civic Life” Second Edition

The updated workbook, “Tapping Civic Life: How to Report First, and Best, What’s Happening in Your Community,” offers journalists tools and techniques they can use to supplement everyday Rolodex reporting. It offers instruction on how to:

• Identify various layers of civic life.
• Identify “connectors” and “catalysts” who would be useful to reporters.
• Find “third places” in the community, where people discuss issues.
• Conduct conversations instead of interviews.
• Map communities by area or topic.

New Book: Civic Journalism Is… Read more

***The Straight Talk from American’s 2000 National Poll can be found under the Research Section of this sight. Link to Poll.

Mapping Your Beat

By Pat Ford
Pew Center

Before she got her electronic database, Dianne Whitacre used to hang out in a lot of gas stations. They were one place she could find commuters to comment on stories about the region’s highways. Now, she hits a few keys on her computer and sources come tumbling out– without those nasty exhaust fumes.

Whitacre is the alter ego of “Dr. Traffic,” one of the Charlotte Observer’s most popular Sunday features. Readers send her questions ranging from “When will the new stretch of Colony Road open?” to “Why don’t drivers practice high-beam courtesy?” Read more

Savannah’s “Vision 2010” Wins Batten Award
Civic Legacy and Innovations Cited

Washington, DC, March 21, 2002 — The Savannah Morning News won the 2002 Batten Awards for Excellence in Civic Journalism, a $10,000 honor for a robust, community-driven project that targeted failing schools and triggered the creation of a civic group to raise venture capital for education innovations. 

The runner-up was The Cincinnati Enquirer, awarded $5,000 for wide-ranging initiatives that involved more than 2,000 people in community conversations about race relations since last April’s riots.  Read more

A Forum for All

By Pat Ford
Pew Center

Editors, publishers, webmasters, California Highway Patrolmen and California Assemblyman Dean Florez all came together for the first live bilingual forum on fresnobee.com, Dec. 8. But in the end, it was reporter Daniel Rodriquez who made it all possible.

Two fingers zinging across a keyboard in his self-taught typing style, Rodriquez simultaneously translated-English to Spanish or Spanish to English as required-and pounded out more than 30 questions so that the 1,500 people who “hit” the forum could learn how to make the ride to work safer for the poor and underrepresented farm workers of the San Joaquin Valley. Read more