What’s Happening in Pew Projects

Also in May, KCET-TV hosted a one-hour special featuring a live studio audience on the most hotly contested of the ballot issues, including one to eliminate bi-lingual education in California schools.

The effort was driven by early polling and considerable preliminary coverage from the newspaper partners, with the coalition coming together around specific events to broaden impact among readers, listeners, and viewers.

The results were distilled into concepts that will be part of a Citizens’ Charter made up of findings from four sesquicentennial discussions on family, race and culture, land use, and work. Among the concepts were: “Americans have difficulty accepting differences” and “Racism is learned.”

The television program earned a 6 rating and a 16 share in the Madison market alone, putting the issue before 32,000 viewers – 16% of Madison’s resident population. The program was re-broadcast in La Crosse, and Duluth-Superior, reaching another 18,000 people. Follow-up is taking place in the “Your Forum” section of the Wisconsin State Journal, and in editorials and stories by the other media partners.

Scheduled for June 20 was “Using the Land,” the third conversation in the series.

With information developed from the most extensive poll ever done on these subjects in the largely Hispanic Texas border town, the El Paso Times and KVIA-TV opened a conversation that was as emotional as it was varied. There was disagreement on the need for affirmative action – with 56% of the Anglos polled saying “No,” while an equal percentage of Hispanics responded “Yes.” (The community is nearly three-quarters Hispanic.) In an open forum on the fourth day of the eight-day effort, a citizen audience of about 160 people concluded that while racism is no longer overt, it is still present in subtle ways and worthy of examination and discussion.

The newspaper series was accompanied by concurrent television coverage of the issues. KVIA followed up with a one-hour documentary on the forum a week later.

Times Metro Editor Robert Moore, who directed the race relations survey, said that discussions on a next step are continuing and include broadening the conversation beyond the local community.

The community now has nearly equal populations of white and black residents, compared with 1979 when the proportions were 90-10. The Reporter uncovered different perceptions within the community: the mostly elderly white population believed Wrightwood is four-fifths black; most black residents believed racial balance was closer to the actual 50-50. A second example of misunderstanding concerned the late hours of some of the beauty shops patronized by black residents. Some whites had thought that the lights on after dark meant illegal activity, such as drug-dealing. Instead, reporters found that some hair styles, such as braiding, took much longer to complete.

WBEZ-FM plans to air the community conversation. Residents will be invited to talk across color lines about what can be done to preserve Wrightwood as an integrated community.

The effort to define a future vision moves next to the conversation stage, as the partners look to bring leaders and people together to find solutions. A town hall meeting at the end of May was the starting point. Smaller “spot” polls and focus groups will be used in the next phase.

More citizen sessions are scheduled throughout the summer to provide input when the legislature takes up the tax question in the 1999 session.

CVF President Kim Alexander said the web site gives voters control over when and how they get information and includes contact information, ballot measure summaries and campaign and election related links as well as a guide to judicial elections. Says Alexander, “California’s complex ballot can be overwhelming and many voters don’t have time to sort through it all. So http://www.calvoter.org empowers voters by providing independent information accessible 24 hours a day.”

Driven by a statewide poll administered in five separate regions, the group will highlight how issues and solutions may differ from one area to another.

Separate town meetings will be held in each of the five areas, with citizen input expected to reveal different regional concerns. The gubernatorial candidates are invited to each town meeting, but the organizers will not treat the sessions as campaign appearances. Instead they will be designed as opportunities for the candidates – those who would govern – to listen. The newspaper plans to publish “Beyond the Ballot” stories in its Maine Sunday Telegram each week, with special reports on the progress of the campaign from the citizens’ viewpoint from late August to mid-November. For example the traditional “candidates’ profiles” will this year include the voices of the citizens.

Last year, citizens logged in loud and clear on their misgivings about growth.

They said they didn’t see themselves or their children benefiting from the region’s booming economy. For them, growth meant only higher housing prices, nightmarish commutes and sprawl. One citizen advocated hanging a “Lot Full” sign on the gates of Seattle.

Some 100 citizens wrote, called, or e-mailed to express their opinion in the days following the project kick-off. The county executive asked if he could be involved in any Forum-sponsored citizen discussions on the topic.

The series will explore these themes: 1) Is growth inevitable?; 2) Does growth pay for itself? Should it?; 3) The impact of government economic-development subsidies and growth; 4) Immigration and growth; and 5) Babies and growth.

The coalition is using in-depth stories on these concerns, plus candidate record and profile stories to broaden the discussion beyond the issues of the professional activists and the candidates’ handlers. In addition, the partners are soliciting questions from people and running candidates’ responses.

As one result, the community cable channel BronxNet, through the student-run “News 67” program, staged a live, interactive call-in program in May around the referendum on the future of Northern Ireland. Spokesmen from The Irish Echo were on the panel fielding questions and comments. In another case, an Italian language newscast has been started as part of the response to the community. The newscast is being telecast in Japanese in addition to Italian.