What’s Happening in Pew Center Projects

When the North Carolina legislature for the first time this year required each school to increase its parent participation, The Observer saw a civic journalism opportunity.

The partners plan to launch on Nov. 10 eight weeks of coverage of intergenerational issues. Among the questions the different stories will address will be: Why not me first? Who pays for whom? Who will take care of me? What kind of retirement can I expect? A poll is trying to uncover what distinguishes one generation from another in values. The partners are seeking citizen input, asking readers for examples of people from a different generation who influenced their lives. They also are considering inviting citizens to community dialogues at such sites as the Mall of America to discuss the issues that arise in the coverage.

The partners kicked off their coverage on Sept. 15 with a week of stories exploring the problems of violent young people. The coverage was timed to the one-year anniversary of the death of a young girl who was stabbed in front of her school. WXXI ran a half-hour documentary on the problem on Sept. 20. WOKR-TV has run daily stories on the same topics covered in the newspaper. The following week, the media partners focused on solutions stories, leading up to a two-hour round-table discussion Sept. 28 in WXXI’s studios. WOKR-TV also taped the round-table for its newscast. During the discussion, parents, kids and experts sought to come up with action plans for dealing with an outbreak of violence. The discussion groups focused on addressing the problem in homes, in the community and in schools.

During the week of Oct. 7, four community round tables, of 12 to 15 people each, met to discuss recommendations for addressing the leadership gap in Peoria. Each roundtable had a representative of the business community, labor, a retiree and a journalist. So far, the steering community has come up with more than 50 ideas, based on the feedback from the project’s four mail surveys — of employers, of community organizations, of retirees and of local leadership school grads. Facilitators focused on getting the roundtables first to discuss a range of ideas, then really develop two of them, addressing such issues as how the ideas could be accomplished, who should do it, who should finance it. The results of the partners latest survey were released Oct. 13 and the partners invited the public each day to come up with their own ideas. All the discussion is headed for a big town meeting on Nov. 18 to plan for the future.

It was a full house: More than 600 tickets were sent to Bay Area residents who asked to come to an Oct. 3 forum, “Unlock the Gridlock — A Public Forum on the Future of Bay Area Transportation.” The two-hour session at Burlingame High School was preceded by the partners doing numerous stories on transit problems in the region. KQED radio aired one hour of the forum at a later time. Bay TV cable aired a portion the following weekend. And KRON anchored its 6 p.m. news live from the Burlingame train station, site of a key transit conflict between regional rail service and extending the area’s BART system. Citizen questions were collected via newspaper registration coupons and citizens were invited to ask short questions of experts at the forum.

The partners kicked off a “week without violence” Oct. 6, with a call to action from the newspaper and a community fair that showcased the news coverage and help show people how they could get involved. On Oct. 8 the partners sponsored a 90-minute televised community forum aimed at showing and discussing how people could take responsibility for ending violence. Mixing videotape and live discussion, the forum mirrored topics that have been reported in the newspaper. For instance, how to teach kids non-violent games, what it means to grow up male, messages that young males get.

A series of more than a dozen forums on public education, sponsored by the Mercury News Editorial Board and the Santa Clara Public Libraries, culminated in an “Education Town Hall” televised live by KPIX for an hour on Aug. 15. About 300 people attended the town hall and another 300 attended the smaller library forums. “The involvement with community forums has given our editorial page staff a better idea of what regular people think; it has helped us listen better,” said editor Rob Elder. The televised town hall, viewed by another 300,000 people in the Bay Area, generated about 100 calls to local public libraries via an 800-number that viewers could call to get more information. After it was over, “people didn’t want to stop talking,” said KPIX’s Rosemary Roach. “And they called the stations asking if we would do more of these.”

The partners followed last year’s children’s poll and TV program with coordinated coverage of stories built around the theme of “Life Choices.” The Free Press and WXYZ are reporting stories about children who have come up against some hard life choices dealing with such issues as personal safety, education, drugs and substance abuse, and sexuality. These issues emerged from a mid-summer focus group of high school students. In mid-October, the Free Press dealt with each issue over two days and WXYZ did a one-hour program weaving these four areas, titled “Teen Choices and Chances.”

The paper is reviewing responses from some 3,000 neon yellow postcards that were distributed in late summer in this tourist community. The postcards asked residents to answer six open-ended questions. For instance, What would you change about your community? What benefits and what problems do you see from the current development boom? And what really makes you mad right now? The same questions were published on coupons in the paper. The paper also asked each reporter and editor to interview five people in the community. The responses will be used to frame coverage of key community issues. “We really didn’t have enough money to do a real poll,” editor Sue Deans said. “But the feedback I’m getting is that people are enjoying responding.”

The more than 200 citizens who met over the summer in 11 actions teams presented their reports last month, containing their recommendations for dealing with corporate downsizing and other issues in the community. The recommendations will be key discussion points for a broadcast town hall meeting with citizens and discussion leaders this fall to map out efforts for the future.

The partners are convening six town hall meetings with congressional candidates in communities throughout the region this fall to enable voters to meet and question candidates. They are also planning, with the League of Women Voters, a major focus on voter registration. One idea is to address an issue per week, with candidates each week answering questions about that issue. Over the summer, Channel 12 visited four communities with its “12 on Tour” campaign to learn about local issues.

The Race Relations and Growth and Environment citizen discussion groups were most active over the summer. One outcome has been to initiate a “visioning” process that is focusing on the future of Tallahassee. The partners plan to convene a Community Dialogue this month to address issues that have been discussed in the smaller groups.

“Maine Citizens Campaign ’96”
SANFORD, ME.
PARTNERS: PORTLAND PRESS HERALD, MAINE SUNDAY TELEGRAM, MAINE PUBLIC BROADCASTING NETWORK, WGME-TV (CBS)

More than 30 of the 45 Sanford residents who have been meeting over the past year to deliberate issues questioned Gov. Angus King at a Sept. 3 dialogue. This month they are questioning Congressional candidates. And they are focusing on what they might like to do as a group after the deliberation phase of their project ends.