2001: A Learning Odyssey, Savannah, GA 2001
Partners:
Savannah Morning News
WSOK-AM
The paper brought together 60 citizens in August 2000 as the first step in its project on Savannah’s failing public schools. The 39,000-student district was among the worst in the nation. It had gone through three superintendents in five years, the school board was fighting with the governor over school reform, and six schools were about to be taken over by the state. Yet, the meeting was the first effort to involve citizens in developing strategies for school improvement.
Over the next year, the group would more than double in size and its ideas and actions – boiled down to four basic principals to guide school reform – became the basis for Vision 2010, a project exploring what was needed to make Savannah-Chatham County schools the best in the country within the decade.
Some 35 stories, more than half written by citizens, appeared in a special section in August 2001. The project has now grown beyond a newspaper series. A dozen volunteers are working to help the county’s lowest-performing middle school turn around. Other volunteers are working to bring new programs such as a high tech high school to the district. Most significantly, 30 educators, non-profit leaders and business people have formed the Chatham Excellence in Education Foundation to raise the money needed to carry on the work of Vision 2010.
The project won the 2002 Batten Award. The newspaper’s owner contributed $10,000 – an amount equal to the prize money – to the Excellence in Education Foundation, to help it meet its $3 million goal.
Contact:
Dan Suwyn
Managing Editor
Savannah Morning News
PO Box 1088, 11 W. Bay St.
Savannah, GA 31402-1088
Phone: (912) 652-0322
Email: dsuwyn@savannahnow.com
Rexanna Lester
Executive Editor
Savannah Morning News
PO Box 1088, 11 W. Bay St.
Savannah, GA 31402-1088
Phone: (912) 652-0300
Email: rexanna@savannahnow.com
West Virginia After Coal, Huntington, WV 2000
Partners:
The (Huntington) Herald-Dispatch
West Virginia Public Broadcasting
The partners made economic revitalization the dominant issue in West Virginia legislative and political debate with “West Virginia After Coal,” a far-reaching exploration of the state’s prospects if it continues to rely solely on coal for its economic well-being.
The project provided a number of features to educate citizens and generate discussion including a newspaper series, a live town hall meeting and a dedicated website.
The Herald-Dispatch kicked off a six-part series, Sept. 17, 2000, with a ground-breaking investigation of how local governments were using coal severance taxes. The paper found virtually none of the money being used for economic development. Instead, it was being used to underwrite normal budgetary items such as postage and animal shelters.
The series also included results of a Pew-funded poll of 400 West Virginia residents, showing a large majority thought the state should reduce its reliance on coal.
The paper made the series available to any paper in the state and all or part of it ran in six of the state’s papers.
Public television and radio simulcast a live three-hour town hall meeting with more than 200 citizens participating at 10 different sites around the state. The partners’ Web site allowed users to chat live during the meeting. The site also features a searchable database of severance tax spending and it allows users to take the poll and see where they stand in relation to other West Virginia residents.
The project won the James Batten Award in 2001.
Contact:
Len LaCara
Former Managing Editor
Herald-Dispatch
Huntington, WV
Phone: (304) 526-2779
Email: llacara@aol.com
Beth Gorczyca
Reporter
Herald-Dispatch
946 5th Ave.
Huntington, WV 25701
Phone: (304) 526-2772
Email: bethg@herald-dispatch.com
Rural Idaho: Challenged to Change, Idaho 2001
Partners:
The Idaho Statesman
Idaho Spokesman-Review
Lewiston Morning Tribune
(Idaho Falls) Post Register
KTVB-TV (NBC in Boise)
Idaho Public Television
The news organizations gave a statewide scope to the problems of rural Idaho with their collaboration on “Rural Idaho: Challenged to Change,” a five-part series that ran simultaneously in all four papers, and as a three-part series on KTVB in October of 2001. The series’ revelations led to a November conference, attended by several hundred citizens, co-sponsored by the Statesman and two non-profit public policy organizations that, in turn, generated a white paper to the state legislature on measures needed to shore up rural Idaho.
The partners conducted a statewide poll of 813 residents and held five roundtable meetings across the state to get the views of Idaho citizens on the challenges facing rural areas. The Statesman also solicited reader ideas through an online poll. Several hundred people completed the poll. The Statesman estimates it received input from 1,400 Idahoans over the course of the project. The paper sold 3,000 extra copies the week the series ran and its Rural Idaho Web page received 80,000 hits in the first three months.
The partners also created and analyzed several databases for the series. One, on education, revealed the low achievement of rural schools. Only 8 percent of the school districts in rural counties met the national average on standardized tests. That was news even to state education officials.
The tenuous state of rural Idaho was brought home through the stories of five families, each from different areas of the state and representing different segments of the rural economy. The package drew praise from the Northwest Area Foundation, which is dedicated to helping rural areas. Its president Karl Stauber said, “The way you’ve pulled together this media package is the best example of engaging the entire citizenry of the state in becoming more knowledgeable and more involved in finding solutions for Idaho.”
Contact:
Carolyn K. Washburn
Executive Editor
The Idaho Statesman
P.O. Box 40
Boise, ID 83707
Phone: (208) 377-6403
Email: cwashbur@boise.gannett.com
Steve Silberman (former Statesman Managing Editor)
Executive Editor
The Desert Sun
750M. Gene Autry Trail
Palm Springs, CA 92262
Phone: (760) 778-4616
Email: silberman@thedesertsun.com
Computerized Polling Kiosks, Missoula, MT 2001
Partners:
Missoulian
Using modest Pew funding, Missoulian reporter Rob Chaney refitted three government surplus computers to become portable polling kiosks, suitable for gathering instant reaction to news events or for determining which issues voters are most interested in.
Software installed in the computers allowed Chaney to program in survey questions on any topic and choose the type of answer he wanted – multiple choice, true-false, short answer – even essay questions. The computers were placed in simple wooden cabinets so they could be taken anywhere – senior citizen centers, high school cafeterias, even street corners if a power supply was available.
Originally conceived as an election coverage tool, the computers turned out to have a number of uses. When firefighters from all over the West raced to stop forest fires raging in Montana, Chaney took a kiosk to the Ninemile Fire Camp and collected comments from 50 people about the rigors of battling the blazes. After a Hell’s Angels gathering near Missoula resulted in a near riot, Chaney conducted a flash survey near the scene of the clash and turned up several eyewitnesses among respondents, who left their names and phone numbers for more extensive follow up interviews.
Chaney used the results of the kiosk surveys in several different ways. Voter responses on issues surveys helped guide his election coverage. Sometimes specific comments from the kiosks were used in stories. Occasionally, Chaney devoted an entire story to the responses the kiosks generated, such as the one featuring the sometimes humorous and sometimes touching observations of the firefighters trying to save Montana forest.
Contact:
Robert Chaney
Local Government Reporter
The Missoulian Newspaper
500 S. Higgins
Missoula, MT 59801
Phone: (406) 523-5382
Email: rchaney@missoulian.com
Stray Voltage, LaCrosse, WI 2001
Partners:
La Crosse Tribune
This project examined the hazards of stray voltage – electrical current that leaks from power lines – for farms and livestock through a series of newspaper stories and a dedicated Web site that drew comments and questions from around the world.
The stories, looking at causes, effects and possible solutions of stray voltage, were denounced by utility companies, who tried to pressure the Tribune by going directly to the editorial board to complain and even questioning the Pew Center about its support of the project. But the project was embraced by farmers and some public officials. The Michigan Attorney General included several of the stories as evidence in legal action against the state’s second largest utility. The Wisconsin Rural Energy Management Council invited reporter Chris Hardie to display his story and answer questions on the subject as part of its research for the state legislature.
The project won five Wisconsin journalism awards and the Web site www.strayvoltage.org generated daily traffic for years.
Contact:
Chris Hardie
Local News Editor
La Crosse Tribune
401 North 3rd St.
La Crosse, WI 54601
Phone: (608) 791-8218
Email: chardie@lacrossetribune.com
Civic Ways to Use Wire Stories, Richmond, IN 2000
Partners:
(Richmond) Palladium-Item
Dayton Daily News
Earlham College
The partners developed strategies to make wire stories – the main source of national and international news for most small papers – more engaging and relevant to readers. Earlham professor Cheryl Gibbs and her students created special pages of international news for the Palladium-Item, using wire stories and other readily available sources. Unlike traditional wire-dependent foreign news pages, the Palladium-Item’s “Big Picture” page included reading lists, local organizations linked to the story and ways to get personally involved through donations or other outreach efforts.
The pages were critiqued by focus groups of readers and later pages were further refined. Gibbs and her students found readers became more engaged if they felt a personal connection to a story and suggested that papers could help readers make that connection using a few simple steps. They include translating statistics and demographic information into more local and familiar terms, telling readers how they can help or communicate their views to decision-makers and suggesting reading lists that include literary and cultural content as well as politics and history.
Contact:
Cheryl Gibbs
Assistant Professor
Earlham College
Drawer 62, 801 National Road West
Richmond, IN 47374-4095
Phone: (765) 983-1506
Email: chergibbs@aol.com
Geneforum.org, Portland, OR 2000
Partners:
Oregon Public Broadcasting
Albany Democrat-Herald
The (La Grande) Observer
Newport News-Times
Geneforum.org
Because Oregon is the only state in the nation that treats an individual’s DNA as private property, its genetic privacy law is frequently under discussion and review. The project increased public knowledge of this unique law and created opportunities for public input into the ongoing discussions using a variety of tools:
- Three produced stories and five call-in shows on Oregon Public Radio.
- Seven focus groups around the state of 12-15 people each.
- A Nov. 14, 2000 town hall meeting in Portland that attracted 25 people including three state legislators.
- The creation of geneforum.org, an interactive Web site dedicated to the topic.
The Web site experienced approximately 10,000 user sessions during 2000. Some 300 of the visitors completed quizzes on their attitudes toward genetically engineered food and the use of their own tissue for genetic research.
The results, along with other citizen input, were forwarded to the Genetic Research Advisory Committee, appointed by the Oregon Legislature to make recommendations on the state’s genetic privacy law. In its final report, the committee cited the input as beneficial to its work and recommended, among its findings, that “continuing efforts be made to gather public input on genetic privacy issues, to inform and educate the public about genetic research and to promote public dialogue on these issues.”
The partners used the Pew funding to leverage additional funding from two Portland based foundations for support of the Web site and the focus group research.
Contact:
Morgan Holm
Director of News & Public Affairs
Oregon Public Broadcasting
7140 S.W. Macadam Ave.
Portland, OR 97219-3013
Phone: (503) 293-1905
Email: morgan_holm@opb.org
Invisible Boundaries: Communities of Choice, Fort Lauderdale, FL 2000
Partners:
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
CBS 4 and Newsradio 610
The partners documented the way massive social changes have swept aside the traditional definition of “community” and replaced it with a patchwork of affiliations, raising serious issues for civic institutions.
Though focused on the suburbs of South Florida, “Invisible Boundaries: Communities of Choice” was a story of our times – very much an exploration of the forest, not the trees.
Using information gathered from two focus groups and a survey of 1,000 residents of Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach Counties, the partners showed how factors such as sprawl, technology, immigration and employment options affect how people define and commit themselves to communities.
The research found, for example, that the workplace is more likely than the neighborhood to be the place where people spend most of their time, form their closest bonds, invest energy, volunteer and make charitable donations.
Technological advances allow new immigrants to stay closely connected-through e-mail, cell phones and ease of travel – to their native countries, making them less likely to become civically engaged in their new homeland.
The four-part series ran in the paper and on radio and television over a series of several months, from Aug. 13, 2000 to Feb. 2001. Also in February, the paper distributed a multicultural directory, listing agencies and organizations serving the needs of an ever-more diverse community. Reporters and editors conducted a workshop on the series at a convention of neighborhood activists from around Florida.
Contact:
David Blackwell
Deputy Managing Editor
Sun-Sentinel
200 East Las Olas Blvd.
Fort Lauderdale, FL 33301
Phone: (954) 356-4606
Email: dblackwell@sun-sentinel.com
Shock Value, Concord, NH 2000
Partners:
New Hampshire Public Radio
NHPR used the interactive Web technology it pioneered with its Tax Calculator to give the state’s citizens an idea of how electricity deregulation would affect their utility bills. The special “Shock Value” Web site, linking off the NHPR home page, served as both a primer on deregulation and a tool for figuring out how to save money after the state legislature deregulated electricity in May 2000. Users were invited to leave their email addresses so NHPR could notify them of new developments affecting their utility bills. The site also featured a bulletin-board discussion area where ratepayers could post messages that were automatically forwarded to an email box set up for state legislators on the deregulation committee.
More than 3,000 visitors came to the site, some driven by promos broadcast on NHPR stations, thus proving that radio can create a feedback loop with the Web. The experience helped institutionalize radio-Web integration at NHPR, and NHPR believes it helped forge a new relationship with listeners/users as a reliable source for palatable information on complex topics.
Contact:
Jon Greenberg
Senior News Editor
New Hampshire Public Radio
207 North Main Street
Concord, NH 03301-5003
Phone: (603) 223-2435
Email: jgreenberg@nhpr.org
Cyber Mapping, Anniston, AL 2000
Partners:
The Anniston Star
The paper sought to become more interactive by creating new opportunities for reader exchanges through its online service, and it made some strides in that direction, but technical difficulties kept reporters from taking full advantage of the project’s potential.
The paper gathered about 800 e-mail addresses for a “cyber-map” to complement its civic map of community sources. However, the database has not been used as a reporting tool. Online editor Geni Certain explained the information was centralized on one newsroom computer so reporters did not have easy access to it and never got into the habit of using it.
The paper has continued to work on creating the online discussion groups and forums it hoped for. Working with the three other newspapers owned by its parent company, Consolidated Publishing, it has mounted an online message board for discussions about news events. Certain said regular users of the board reflect a “great sense of community on that board,” referring to themselves as “we” when discussing the views expressed on the board.
Contact:
Chris Waddle
Executive Editor
The Anniston Star
P.O. Box 189
Anniston, AL 36202-0189
Phone: (256) 235-9208
Email: cwaddle@annistonstar.com
Race in the Yakima Valley, Yakima, WA 2000
Partners:
Yakima Herald-Republic
Immigration has boosted the Hispanic presence in Yakima to 37 percent of the total population. The paper explored the resulting tensions and benefits in a seven-day series, “Race in the Yakima Valley,” Dec. 10-16, 2000. Reporters and editors worked with an ethnically diverse advisory committee to develop questions for a survey of 400 Hispanic and 400 non-Hispanic Yakima area residents. The paper also convened two focus groups.
The focus groups proved to be so rich in insight that the paper created what it called “Listening Post” assignments, requiring reporters to seek out sources never interviewed by the paper before in public places where people congregate. Reporters estimate they spoke to more than 300 people for the project.
Some 80 people phoned or emailed the paper with mostly favorable comments. Yakima’s PBS station aired an hour-long discussion of the Herald-Republic’s stories and the issues involved on day six of the series. The series also inspired the dean of education at nearby Heritage College to look into organizing a round-table group to keep the discussion of race alive.
Contact:
Bob Crider
Managing Editor
Yakima Herald-Republic
114 N. 4th Street
Yakima, WA 98901
Phone: (509) 577-7672
Email: bcrider@yakima-herald.com
Focus on the Ethnic Voter and Bay Area Bridges, San Francisco, CA 2000
Partners:
Pacific News Service/New California Media
Pacific News Service seized the 2000 presidential and local California elections to demonstrate the growing political clout of ethnic voters and, in the process, created new outlets for diverse voices in the mainstream media.
Pooling the resources of 100 ethnic newspapers and broadcast stations in the Bay Area, Pacific News Service started New California Media in 1996 to circulate stories among its members. Pew funding allowed the nascent service to step up activities during the election and focus on the impact of ethnic voters.
Newsmaker breakfasts, for instance, gave ethnic media reporters opportunities to meet with candidates and issues experts. A special area of NCMonline.org was dedicated to “Focus on the Ethnic Voter.” NCM-TV produced a series of half-hour shows on ethnic voters, which aired on the Bay Area PBS and Asian-language stations and statewide on CSPAN.
The coverage got the attention of mainstream media and ultimately led the San Francisco Chronicle to create a Sunday section, “Bay Area Bridges,” summarizing and translating stories from the area’s ethnic newspapers, such as India-West, Pakistan Today, Beirut Daily Star and Nichi Bei Times. In addition, KALW-FM gave NCM a Friday slot for a weekly show, “UpFront,” featuring ethnic media reporters, editors and producers.
Contact:
Sandy Close
Executive Editor
Pacific News Service
660 Market St, Suite 210
San Francisco, CA 94104
Phone: (415) 438-4755
Email: sclose@pacificnews.org
Redefining Disenfranchised Communities, Philadelphia, PA 2001
Partners:
WHYY-TV 12 (PBS)
WHYY-FM
The station held two focus groups, one with labor union members and one with victims of catastrophic illness, in an effort to redefine the concept of community – away from geography and demography, toward areas of shared concerns. Participants included men and women from different neighborhoods as well as different racial and ethnic groups.
The station found that, indeed, despite their varied backgrounds, participants shared common needs and concerns that were not always served by the media. The focus groups generated a number of story ideas and frames for covering these communities in a more meaningful way. The information was not used to produce news stories, as had been hoped, however, because the station found funding was insufficient to cover production costs.
Contact:
Paul A. Gluck
VP & Station Manager
WHYY-TV
150 N. 6th Street
Philadelphia, PA 19106
Phone: (215) 351-2003
Email: pgluck@whyy.org
WebTV Election Project, Madison, WI 2000
Partners:
Wisconsin Public Television
The project experimented with ways to use Interactive Television (ITV) to enhance election coverage. ITV combines television viewing and Internet browsing on a standard TV screen through the use of a set-top WebTV unit and remote. Though the technology was still very new and not widely used, Wisconsin Public Television (WPT) believed it was a growing trend that would soon be an industry standard.
Using the technology in the 2000 election helped the network develop several successful strategies for adding content to its coverage without unduly distracting from the television broadcast. A toolbar superimposed on broadcasts allowed WebTV viewers, using their remotes, to link to candidate bios, descriptions of various election races and issues being discussed. They could even email the show’s producers directly, take a poll or view poll results. WPT used focus group sessions after broadcasts to get user input into how to make the interactive tools better and easier to use.
By the night of the general election in November, WPT was able to coordinate its own ITV links with the nationally broadcast NewsHour’s ITV links, to give Wisconsin WebTV users access to continuously updated national results from the NewsHour and continuously updated statewide results from WPT. This type of local/national interactive TV partnership was unprecedented.
Contact:
Kathy Bissen
Exec. Prod, News & Public Affairs
Wisconsin Public Television
821 University Ave.
Madison, WI 53706
Phone: (608) 263-8496
Email: bissen@wpt.org
Electric Utility Deregulation, Las Vegas, NV 2000
Partners:
KLVX-TV (PBS-Las Vegas)
KNBP-TV (PBS-Reno)
The stations joined to broadcast their first live, interactive, statewide town hall meeting in February 2000 on the issue of electric utility deregulation. With deregulation scheduled to take place in March, the stations wanted to help consumers get answers to questions about this complex public policy issue. Viewers emailed, faxed and phoned in questions to three-member panels in Las Vegas and in Reno. In addition, a studio audience in Las Vegas questioned the panels, which included the head of the state’s largest utility and the chair of the Public Utilities Commission.
Though ratings were typical for the time slot – a one rating and a one share – the stations were pleased with the outcome. There was a steady stream of phone callers throughout the broadcast and there were numerous requests for tapes of the show.
Contact:
Mitch Fox
News & Public Affairs Manager
KLVX-TV
4210 Channel 10 Drive
Las Vegas, NV 89119
Phone: (702) 799-1010
Email: mfox@klvx.org