Spring 1998
More New Videos
Three other new videos, each about 20 minutes long, have been produced by the Pew Center and are available for newsroom or classroom discussion. They are based on presentations given by editors at a Civic Journalism Retreat attended by 40 seasoned civic journalists in November 1997. The retreat was sponsored by the Pew Center and hosted by the Poynter Institute for Media Studies in St. Petersburg.
Citizen Reader: Building Civic Journalism Pages at The Virginian-Pilot. The Norfolk paper is building on its civic journalism work by experimenting with devoting an entire page three days a week to covering Education, Public Life and Public Safety. Managing Editor Dennis Hartig explains how the pages employ conventions such as score cards, status reports, crime maps and success stories to cover “not what happened yesterday but how things are going,” over time. The goal is to help make readers “more effective citizens” by imparting knowledge as well as news.
New Listening Posts: Blending Investigative with Civic Journalism in Asbury Park. Jody Calendar, Deputy Editor of the Asbury Park Press, recounts her journey from civic journalism skeptic to advocate in this video. A hard news junkie, Calendar became the driving force in a civic journalism project that sent reporters to talk to ordinary citizens and turned up a massive mortgage swindle. The resulting efforts, “House of Cards” and “What Ails Asbury,” galvanized the community.
Self-Publishing Communities: Partnering with the New Competition. How can civic journalism help newspapers face the challenges presented by on-line publishing? Glenn Ritt, vice president of news and information at The Record in Hackensack, N.J., shares his ideas for making newspapers the foundation of a region’s information highway by building partnerships with community groups on the Web.