Winter 1997
Pew Center’s New Projects
The Pew Center’s Advisory Board has selected 13 civic journalism efforts to receive funding in the coming year. The projects range from a broad Los Angeles area media coalition’s plans to explain complex ballot questions in the forthcoming elections to efforts to cover Asians in San Francisco, Hispanics in El Paso, and a racially changing community in Chicago. For the first time, the Pew Center is supporting efforts of a PBS documentary, “Livelyhood,” to engage regional news organizations and communities around the country in national conversations about work. The center is continuing its support of Seattle’s successful “Front Porch Forum” media partners and of The Portland Newspapers’ plans to launch a three-year project to give citizens ongoing input into the governance of Maine. This round of projects marks the fifth year that the Pew Center has helped to support pioneering efforts to engage readers and listeners and viewers in community issues through journalism that seeks to involve them as participants rather than as spectators. To date, the center has helped to support 62 initiatives around the country.
Bronx, NY.
Partners: Bronxnet, the Multi-lingual Journalism Program of Lehman College
The community cable network will work with The Bronx Journal, the newly launched multi-lingual tabloid published by Lehman journalism students, on monthly civic journalism initiatives. Bronxnet, through its “Eyes on the Bronx” program, will create interactive call-in shows, electronic town meetings, and special shows. The Bronx Journal will develop reporting projects on different ethnic communities and ask Bronx residents to identify issues and problems affecting particular communities. The partners plan to get some input from residents via informal post-card surveys disseminated through the paper, a Web site, and as public service announcements on the air.
Idaho Falls, ID.
Partners: The Idaho Statesman, The Idaho Falls Post Register, The Lewiston Morning Tribune, The Idaho Spokesman-Review, Idaho Educational Public Television, KTVB (NBC, Boise), KIFI-Idaho8 (ABC, Idaho Falls)
If state revenues and prison construction costs hold steady, by the year 2006 every new tax dollar collected in Idaho will be spent on prisons. These seven news organizations have tried to illuminate the trade-offs at the heart of the state’s prison construction boom and engage the public in the search for alternatives. What will state residents be giving up to build those prison cells? How did prisons become the fastest growing segment of the state budget? The partners used focus groups and a poll to inform the reporting for their series and convened a statewide solutions conference in Boise to advise legislators.
Los Angeles, CA.
Partners: The Orange County Register, the Riverside Press Enterprise, La Opinion, KTTV (Fox), KCET-TV (PBS), KCRW-FM in Santa Monica, KPCC-FM in Pasadena, Orange County NewsChannel
“The Election Connection” is this year’s effort of the Southern California “Voice of the Voter” coalition to “clear away the confusion and stimulate public conversation” surrounding, in particular, California’s unique form of lawmaking – ballot initiatives. In June, voters will face about 10 ballot measures, including those addressing English-only school instruction and legalizing casino gambling on Indian reservations.
Using its five platforms — TV, radio, print, Spanish-language and Web site — the coalition is seeking to discern what citizens know and what they need to know. The partners will use polls to help frame coverage, build pools of citizens to use as sounding boards, recruit for town halls and focus groups and evaluate whether they are “capturing correctly the complexities and nuances of public policy debate.”
The partners also have committed to bi-weekly story packages examining how citizens come into contact with the political system (or choose not to) and how they could access it to participate more. And the coalition will help citizens understand who the candidates are for two key offices – U.S. Senate and Governor.
Seattle, WA.
Partners: The Seattle Times, KCTS-TV, KUOW-FM, KPLU-FM 
The “Front Porch Forum” partners will integrate the citizens’ agenda developed in 1997 into this year’s election coverage of the races for U.S. Senate, two Congressional swing districts, and the state legislature.The partners will build upon what they learned in last year’s “Puget Sound 2020″ project, which included the recommendations of a mock ” jury” of citizens who deliberated over two days on how the region could sustain its quality of life into the next century.
In 1998, the partners will conduct an additional poll, identify bellwether communities to follow, and seat a citizens panel in each community to evaluate the issues and the candidates, and sponsor live candidates forums.
Portland, ME.
Partners: The Portland Newspapers, Central Maine Newspapers, WGME-TV (CBS), Maine Public Radio, Maine Public Television
Using lessons learned from the “Maine Citizens Campaign,” the partners will launch a statewide project on the governing of Maine. Starting with the gubernatorial election, the partners will ask citizens to identify key issues — and then follow those issues after the election to see how the governor and the legislature spend the next four years addressing those citizen concerns.
With current Gov. Angus King running virtually unopposed, the partners are seeking to invent campaign coverage that not only includes the public’s perspective but also continues to provide citizens with ongoing input in the state’s governance.
Using polls and citizens forums, the partners will explore key issues in Maine’s five regions and examine how those issues differ geographically. The results of the forums will be published in periodic progress reports that could be used to evaluate elected officials.
El Paso, TX.
Partners: The El Paso Times, KVIA-TV (ABC), Levi Strauss Foundation, National Park Service
The partners plan to open a community dialogue on race and ethnicity in this Mexican border community – in particular, exploring the views of Hispanics on race-related questions and challenging stereotypes that there is a monolithic view. More than 70 percent of El Paso County’s 700,000 residents are Hispanic. The newspaper and television station, aided by a survey of 1,000 residents, will seek to learn not only how Hispanics relate to other racial and ethnic groups, but also how they relate with one another, how established Hispanics feel about recent immigrants and how language and political issues play on this landscape. The partners plan to convene a town hall meeting to discuss their findings and they propose to make their data available to any group or agency that might want to build programs to address the issues that surface.
Chicago, IL.
Partners: The Chicago Reporter, WGN-TV, WNUA-FM
A team reporting effort will examine the impact of race and poverty on a typical Chicago neighborhood undergoing racial change. “Racial Change in Chicago: A Case Study” will investigate Wrightwood, a blue-collar enclave on the city’s Southwest Side that has been changing racially and economically since 1990. The Reporter seeks to dig below the stereotypes and explore the street-level inequities and tensions that can lead to racial conflicts. What are Wrightwood’s resources, its challenges, its attitudes? Building on database reporting, the reporters will reach out to a cross-section of residents to help them construct a neighborhood agenda for community and political leaders and they will hold a community forum to continue the conversation.
Livelyhood
Partners: The Working Group, KQED-TV, public radio’s “Marketplace”
“Livelyhood” is a PBS series of four one-hour specials, produced by The Working Group and presented by KQED-TV that uses humor to address the changing nature of work in America. Each of the series is being accompanied by local outreach and education campaigns designed to encourage community, school and workplace discussion about how employees and employers are coping with dramatic shifts in work lives. Pew Center support will help fund a national poll on what most concerns Americans about their work lives and regional forums convened by print, radio and television partnerships in four metro areas — including Los Angeles and Milwaukee — to draw communities into discussions about work.
Aberdeen, WA.
Partners: The Daily World, Channel 20 and TCI Cablevision
The first year of the “Changing Tides” project diagnosed the economic and lifestyle challenges confronting the Southern Olympic Peninsula and revealed the complexities and contradictions of what the residents said they wanted to preserve and wanted to change.
This year the partners plan to bring citizens and official leaders together to look towards solutions and help build a citizens agenda for dealing with the problems. The partners will use smaller “spot” polls to determine community sentiment and will convene focus groups to help set the direction.
The 1998 California Online Disclosure Project
Partners: The California Voter Foundation and state news organizations
This effort seeks to track the influence of money and to promote communication among California candidates, journalists and voters by working to post online all campaign contributions for the 1998 races for U.S. Senate, governor, seven other statewide offices, 52 Congressional seats and 100 state legislative seats.
The California Voter Foundation will build among candidates an awareness of the state’s and the Federal Election Commission’s voluntary electronic filing programs, which allow the digital reporting of contributions and expenditures. (Digital filing is mandated in California in 1999.) Participating news organizations have agreed to ask candidates whether they will participate in the voluntary filing programs and their participation will be advertised on CVF’s online voter guide. Those not participating will have their data entered by university students, coordinated by CVF.
San Francisco, CA.
Partners: The San Francisco Examiner, The Maynard Institute for Journalism Education
The Examiner is planning a series of stories on how the city and its communities are being reshaped by changing demographics and shifting populations that are dramatically blurring traditional neighborhood boundaries and altering the political landscape. The partners seek to answer such questions as how are the city’s residents divided by class, generation, language and cultural experience? What are the public policy implications and how can citizens play a part? They plan to use a series of community conversations over two to three months that would help frame questions for a multi-lingual poll of 400 residents and future story possibilities.
Muncie, IN.
Partners: The Muncie Star-Press, WLBC-FM
Indiana is one of only two states where taxes are not based on the market value of homes. The issue has been the subject of conflicting court rulings and a failed legislative reform effort. The partners expect further reform efforts this year and they have proposed researching the issue, examining potential reform options and comparing Indiana’s property tax statutes with those of other states. They want to educate citizens on how the tax structure is established and how they can become more active participants in the debate. They plan to convene focus groups in Muncie, in a large urban area such as Fort Wayne, and a small southern Indiana community such as Corydon. They will poll 400 citizens to get feedback on solutions. And they plan a Community Forum next October, prior to the 1998 legislative elections. They hope to present to the legislature a white paper detailing the results of their research and recommendations for change.
ASNE’s Project Reconnect
Partners: Newspapers and journalism schools in Raleigh, Colorado Springs, Fredericksburg, VA., and Columbia, SC.
In its second year, Project Reconnect’s newspapers and journalism schools are finishing up participation in a program that has sought to connect a newspaper with a specific group in its community that has become disaffected or disenchanted with press coverage. The project also tried to track and evaluate whether the change experiments made a difference at the newspapers or within the targeted group.