Taking Back our Neighborhoods/Carolina Crime Solutions Charlotte, NC 1994
Partners:
The Charlotte Observer
WSOC-TV (ABC)
WPEG-AM
WBTV (CBS)
Pew funds supported the hiring of a community coordinator, Charlene Price-Patterson, who was instrumental in organizing town meetings and focus groups and coordinating reader response.
Reporting started with a computer-assisted analysis of two years of crime statistics that helped the partners select which neighborhoods to focus on. They then polled 400 neighb orhood residents about what they believed to be the root causes of the crime rate. The partners also asked residents of each neighborhood to join an advisory panel that would help frame coverage and define what they saw as the causes and solutions.
Meanwhile, reporters hit the streets to do ground-level reporting on the crime situation in each neighborhood and to produce parallel reports about what worked in neighborhoods where crime was dropping. When the stories ran, the paper included boxes of very specific actions readers could take to help, including a “needs list” drawn up by residents of items and services that could be donated to make improvements in their neighborhoods. The paper also published a telephone number, manned by the United Way, where volunteers could sign up to help.
The response was large and immediate. Lawyers volunteered to use the legal process to shut down crack houses. Volunteers cleared a neglected community park, and started an after-school program and Girl Scout troops. The government also responded, razing unsafe buildings, improving sidewalks and storm drains, sending special police task forces into neighborhoods and launching recreational activities for children. In many of the neighborhoods, crime rates dropped.
Follow-up stories in subsequent years showed improvements continuing in most communities. The project won the 1996 Batten Award.
Contact:
Chuck Clark (former Government Editor, The Observer)
City Editor
Orlando Sentinel
633 N. Orange Avenue
Orlando, FL 32801
TEL: (407) 420-5468
EMAIL: cclark@orlandosentinel.com
The Public Agenda, Tallahassee, FL 1994
Partners:
Tallahassee Democrat
WCTV6 (CBS)
Florida State University
Florida A&M Universities
A three-year project, “The Public Agenda” involved thousands of Tallahassee citizens in discussing and seeking solutions to a wide range of issues facing the city.
Project leaders at the Democrat and WCTV used a host of tools – small group discussions, frequent polls, large forums and on-line chats, among them – to determine which issues citizens considered most critical and then engage those citizens in addressing the issues in a variety of ways. A community coordinator, Mimi Jones, organized citizen participation.
The partners kicked off the project in the summer of 1994 with a series of “living room conversations.” A total of 29 people were interviewed in 10 separate small groups of two to five. These findings were paired with a more formal survey of 800 residents conducted by phone in the fall. The results were reported in the Democrat in a four-part, front-page series explaining the project and inviting participation. The first large public forum, attended by more than 300 people, was held Nov. 16, 1994 – the final day of the series – at the state Capitol and broadcast on WCTV. The paper ran special reports on issues identified in the public discussions: crime, growth, jobs, education and values, race relations and teen concerns. WCTV regularly ran stories about people and ideas that surfaced.
Citizens were invited to voice opinions and submit questions to public officials through the Democrat’s “Public Agenda” page which ran periodically on the front of the Sunday editorial section and included “how you can help” boxes. The partners also held National Issues Forum training seminars to create a pool of facilitators for small group discussions on each issue. Six of the groups, each with six to 20 people, began meeting on their own and some continued to meet after the project formally ended in April 1997.
Polling continued throughout the project, in part to get feedback on how the project was perceived in the community. By year three, it found about one third of Tallahassee residents knew about the project and most of them had a favorable impression of it. Respondents also registered a positive change in their perception of Tallahassee as a city that pulls itself together.
Contacts:
Mimi Jones
Project Manager
The Public Agenda
1713 Silverwood Dr.
Tallahassee, FL 32301
Phone: (850) 942-7199
Michael W. Smith
News Director
WCTV-TV (CBS)
4000 County Rd. 12
Tallahassee, FL 32312
TEL: (850) 893-6666
FAX: (850) 668-3851
EMAIL: mike.smith@wctv6.com
We the People/Wisconsin, Madison, WI 1994
Partners:
Wisconsin StateJournal
Wisconsin Public TV
Wisconsin Public Radio
WISC-TV (CBS)
Wood Communication Group
Pew support helped “We the People/Wisconsin,” one of American journalism’s first and most enduring civic journalism coalitions, use innovative techniques to engage citizens in election coverage. The Pew support helped the partners measure whether the effort had an impact on public participation in the elections. The experiment showed that a planned, coordinated, multi-media civic journalism effort can interest citizens and draw them into the public sphere.
For coverage of the fall 1994 elections for governor and U.S. Senator, the media partners used the techniques they had been fine-tuning since coming together in 1992: Broadcast town hall meetings and debates where citizens were the key participants – identifying and discussing issues and asking questions directly of the candidates. The project organized three town hall meetings and a debate among gubernatorial candidates and one town hall meeting in the senate race.
In addition, the Wisconsin State Journal published a voter education series called “Armed and Dangerous,” just before the November election, about how candidates and their campaigns try to manipulate public opinion through advertising and calculated debate responses. The information was also compiled into a booklet and 300 copies were distributed just before the election.
Surveys measured voter awareness and connectedness before and after the civic journalism effort. A random sample of 230 adults was interviewed in September, before the coverage, and 141 of that group were interviewed after the election. Among the findings: public interest in and knowledge of the election was higher. People felt encouraged to vote and they had a more positive attitude toward participating news organizations. The findings were published in “Civic Journalism: Does it Work?” a Pew publication written by State Journal editor Frank Denton and Esther Thorson, Associate Dean of the University of Missouri School of Journalism.
Contacts:
Deborah Still
Project Director
We The People/ Wisconsin
PO Box 5534
Madison, WI 53705
Phone: (608) 833-8545
Thomas W. Still
President
Wisconsin Technology Council
PO Box 71, 615 E. Washington Ave.
Madison, WI 53701-0071
TEL: (608) 442-7557
FAX: (608) 256-0333
EMAIL: tstill@wisctec.com
Tom Bier
General Manager
WISC-TV
7025 Raymond Rd.
Madison, WI 53719
TEL: (608) 271-5171
FAX: (608) 271-0800
EMAIL: tbier@wisctv.com
David Iverson
Executive Director
Best Practices in Journalism
2601 Mariposa St.
San Francisco, CA 94110
TEL: (415) 553-2489
EMAIL: iverson@wpt.org
James B. Wood
President
Wood Communications Group
700 Regent St.
Madison, WI 53715-1233
Phone: (608) 259-0757
NPR Election Project 1994
Partners:
NPR Election Project
National Public Radio, known for the extraordinary depth and seriousness of its public issues coverage, made changes in its approach to political reporting to improve its coverage of the 1994 election campaign.
The Washington, DC-based network worked with member stations in five cities and two statewide networks to provide high quality, issue-directed reporting based on an agenda determined by citizens.
The network helped its member stations form partnerships with other local news organizations to poll citizens, hold issues forums and town meetings, create advisory panels and use call-in shows to generate citizen input and deliberation, which was used to enhance national and regional political reporting. Specific activities and results varied from area to area:
- The Front Porch Forum, Seattle, WA
Partners:
KUOW-FM, KPLU-FM (Tacoma), The Seattle TimesThe partners considered the election project such a success, they launched a long-term civic journalism partnership, called “The Front Porch Forum,” after a focus group participant suggested people need to sit on their front porches and talk to each other more.
The partners held four focus groups for the project, in May, then followed up with a statewide poll of 500 citizens in June. They found crime, growth, schools, health care and the economy to be the biggest issues. Each partner explored these issues in stories leading up to the election. On Oct. 26, 1994, the partners invited five undecided voters to quiz the two U.S. Senate candidates during an hour-long radio show. The Times ran a transcript of the event. Reader and listener feedback were generally positive and the partners continued to work together on other issues such as growth and leadership, in addition to later elections.
- Voice of the Voter, San Francisco, CA
Partners:
KQED-FM, KRON-TV (NBC), San Francisco ChronicleThe partners commissioned a poll of 633 Bay Area residents in advance of the 1994 gubernatorial primary and found the economy, the environment and education were the issues of greatest concern to voters. Each partner produced stories on the issues and cross-promoted each other’s coverage. The partners also set up voice mail boxes where citizens could call in questions for candidates. Candidates answered the questions in weekly columns broadcast on KQED and KRON and printed in the Chronicle.
Just before the May primary, the partners sponsored a televised, statewide debate among the gubernatorial candidates-the only one held. As the general election approached, the Chronicle launched a voter registration project, followed by several other large Bay Area papers, that resulted in 40,000 new voters.
- The People’s Voice, Boston, MA
Partners:
WBUR-FM, WBZ-TV (CBS), The Boston GlobeThe partners used a combination of forums, focus groups and a poll of 400 citizens to identify issues that voters wanted candidates to address for the project it dubbed, “The People’s Voice.” The Globe told readers the project was “the beginning of a pointed dialogue between candidates and voters.” Through the summer and fall of 1994, the paper ran extensive stories on the citizens’ issues and, in a regular feature, ran a citizen’s question, the candidates’ answer and the citizen’s analysis of whether the candidate had answered the question. It also ran citizen critiques of campaign ads.
WBUR regularly broadcast comments from the focus groups and candidate reaction, as well as talk shows with local experts and community leaders fielding calls. The partners hosted a live broadcast of five citizens questioning candidates for senator and governor, and the Globe helped sponsor a gubernatorial debate and two debates between the senate candidates, including one in which citizens were the questioners.
- Texans Talk: The People’s Agenda, Dallas, TX
Partners:
KERA-FM, The Dallas Morning NewsThe partners sponsored a series of monthly public forums, broadcast on KERA and covered by the Morning News, based on issues identified as voters’ chief concerns by a statewide poll. “”The Public Agenda” also featured a series of newspaper stories on each issue – some devoted to Texans affected by the issue and others devoted to the candidates’ position on the issues. Questions from citizens surveyed for the poll were passed along to candidates and their responses were run regularly.
The partners also worked together on a Senate and governor’s debate, the only one of the campaign. About two dozen people who took part in the issue forums made up a citizens panel that posed questions to the candidates, along with KERA and Morning News reporters.
- Your Vote Counts, Wichita, KS
Partners:
KMUW-FM, The Wichita EagleA poll of 600 Kansans at the beginning of the “Your Vote Counts” project not only identified key voter issues, but also provided a pool of people for public radio reporters to turn to for comment on those issues. Those reporters used voters interviewed for the survey to provide perspective on virtually every aspect of campaign coverage. Poll participants took part in regular discussion forums on subjects such as crime, jobs and the economy. Several of those polled were tapped to conduct their own broadcast interviews with gubernatorial candidates. Reporters followed up those interviews with summary pieces on how citizens believed the candidates responded to their questions.
The Eagle used the issues identified by the poll as the framework for its election coverage and added some new elements to its report. One new feature was a side-by-side chart summarizing and comparing opposing candidates’ stands on issues. Post election research indicated that these were the most-read aspect of the paper’s coverage and that most readers found them helpful.
- Voters’ Voice, New Hampshire
Partners:
New Hampshire Public Radio and TV, WGOT-TV, The (Nashua) Telegraph, the Concord Monitor, the Valley News, The Keene Sentinel, University of New HampshireThe partners in the “Voters’ Voice” project conducted two extensive issues polls – interviewing 500 New Hampshire residents each time – and used the results in two ways. First, the results of each poll were reported in both short and feature length stories. Then, the second poll was used as the basis for areas to explore with candidates during three statewide, live debates. The citizen panels for each debate were selected from among poll respondents.
The partners also sponsored three citizen-driven town meetings with candidates for governor and the state’s two congressional seas. These were broadcast live statewide on public radio and TV and WGOT in Manchester and then rebroadcast at different times of day. NHPR saw no direct evidence that the project increased voter turn-out but thought it did make a difference in the quality of the public debate.
- Campaign ’94, Maine
Partner:
Maine Public RadioMaine Public Radio began its “Campaign ’94” election project with a poll of likely voters. A public forum on jobs and the economy aired in October and special reports summarizing candidates’ remarks on the issues ran in local segments of NPR’s “Morning Edition.”