Winter 1999
Pew Center’s New Projects
The Pew Center’s Advisory Board has selected 15 initiatives in civic journalism to receive funding
in 1999. At the forefront are more sophisticated merging of new technologies and traditional
journalism techniques with civic journalism practices. Twelve states are represented.
The initiatives reveal three underlying aspirations in the nation’s newsrooms:
problems.
being examined.
public policy and to report on citizens’ views and ideas.
Again this year, innovators at regional news organizations are devising ways to make their
journalism more useful and relevant to their communities – while adhering to core journalism
values. They are developing an interactivity in their news reports that gives citizens the
opportunity to participate in discussions, make recommendations or offer solutions to community
problems. The citizens are striving to have a voice in their community; the news organizations
are striving to craft coverage that rings truer.
“Many of today’s most interesting, innovative and important advances in good journalism spring
out of civic journalism projects in local and regional media,” said Jack Nelson, Chief Washington
Correspondent of the Los Angeles Times and chairman of the Pew Center’s Advisory Board.
“Often, however, editors and reporters who want to experiment with new ways to do a better job of
understanding their communities and reporting their findings need extra funding to do it. These
projects usually don’t need much money. The Pew Center often can fill the gap for really solid
projects,” he said.
The Pew Center supports some of the extraordinary costs of trying to engage readers and viewers
in issues of concern – costs not covered in normal newsroom budgets. Approximately $300,000 has
been allocated for the 15 initiatives selected for 1999, an average of $20,000 each. The ideas
and the newsgathering techniques were proposed by the participating news organizations.
Since its inception in 1993, the Pew Center has helped support 77 civic journalism initiatives
that have sought to give ordinary people a voice in coverage of their communities, helped them
identify problems and deliberate solutions and empowered them to become active civic participants.
The following is a list of the newest initiatives.
Denver, CO
The Harwood Institute
To launch the Harwood Civic Mapping Seminars.
News organizations seeking to go beyond official and quasi-official news sources are literally
“mapping” communities and their complex layers of public life. This aims to help reporters uncover
new listening posts and untapped sources of news. News organizations will nominate three
journalists to work on a year-long mapping project and to attend a series of workshops. Five
news organizations (15 journalists) will be selected.
Spokane, WA
The Spokesman-Review
To launch “Fixing Failing Families.”
This builds upon an investigative series, “City of Second Chances,” that examined the exploding
prison population’s impact on Spokane’s civic life. The paper will work with civic mapping
expert Dr. Lew Friedland of the University of Wisconsin to identify and report on
neighborhood-based support and intervention systems for families in trouble.
Anniston, AL
The Anniston Star
To develop a system for identifying the “invisible” leaders in Anniston.
The Anniston Star seeks to develop ways to include more ordinary voices in the paper and
unearth new stories that bubble up where citizens meet in the community. It also wants to
create a database of these sources that would live on, even as young reporters move to other
jobs. The newsroom will use polling, focus groups and a new “Tell it to” series, that will give
readers a place to tell local officials “what’s right and shouldn’t be messed with and what’s
wrong and ought to be changed.”
Springfield, VA
NewsChannel 8
To examine remedies for the traffic congestion that plagues metro Washington, DC.
“Target: Transportation” will report on solutions-oriented suggestions culled from public input
and discussion via regional polling and town meetings. The result will be community-based
programming focusing on community-based solutions.
Portland, ME
The Portland Press Herald, Maine Sunday Telegram
To help the teen community do civic journalism in cyberspace.
The daily and Sunday papers will use KOZ software to enable teens to self-publish news and
features on-line. Working with the papers’ staffs, they will create a teen-centered web site.
The papers also will bring the teen community together for four roundtables around the state.
The intention is to combine an emerging medium (Internet) with teens’ emerging view of news.
The newspaper will become a springboard to spark interest in public life among young citizens.
Concord, NH
New Hampshire Public Radio
To engage state residents in creating an alternative tax base for the state.
New Hampshire’s tax system has been declared unconstitutional by the state Supreme Court.
The “New Hampshire Tax Challenge” will solicit citizen input and ideas for an alternative
tax system and create an “On-Line Tax Calculator” to give people an idea of what might happen
to their taxes under various scenarios for a broad-based tax.
Tampa, FL
The Weekly Planet, Speak Up Tampa Bay, University of South Florida, University of
Tampa.
To help create an on-line neighborhood news “wire” for the Tampa Bay region.
The news service will be used by local media, including the public access television station and
the alternative weekly, to inform citizens and link local and neighborhood civic efforts with
larger regional undertakings. University journalism students will use the “wire” to develop
in-depth stories about neighborhood issues. These will available to local news organizations
and be posted on the Weekly Planet’s Public Life web page.
Bronx, NY
BronxNet, The Bronx Journal
To help create a “virtual town square.”
The Bronx community-access cable channel and the new tabloid published by the Multi-Lingual
Journalism Program of Lehman College will create a clearing-house for community discussion
and debate, anchored in a new Lehman Community Journalism Center. The effort will link the
borough’s multi-ethnic communities via print, television, radio and the Internet.
Seattle, WA
Seattle Times, KCTS-TV, KUOW-FM
To explore how the region’s cultural vision and values will affect future leaders.
The “Front Porch Forum” media partnership will explore leadership at the Millennium, including
such topics as: how future leaders will meet the challenge of growing community fragmentation
and shared power; how consensus-oriented leadership affects progress; how non-profit concerns
affect leadership; and how philanthropy gets redefined in a region of more than 59,000 millionaires.
Elmira, NY
Elmira Star-Gazette, The Radio Group
To launch “Kids & Character 2000.”
Should schools have a role in teaching values to children? The paper and the group of five radio
stations will seek citizen input into how values should be taught in the community.
Minneapolis, MN
Internews Interactive, KTCA-TV
To use two-way video-conferencing to involve citizens in news coverage.
The Minneapolis public television station will build on its “Citizens’ Forum” project by using
emerging video-conferencing technology. By providing fixed sites for the cameras, such as a
neighborhood restaurant, residents will know where to go to express their views.
Binghamton, NY
WSKG Public Broadcasting, the Press & Sun-Bulletin
To examine “end-of-life” care and decision-making.
The multi-media partnership will reframe end-of-life issues in south-central New York and
north-central Pennsylvania. It will look at the medical, legal, financial, spiritual and
ethical concerns through citizens’ eyes, assisted by town meetings, forums and outreach via
the regional public library system.
Savannah, GA
The Savannah Morning News
To examine the impact of the region’s growing elderly population.
The paper will use surveys, focus groups, forums and task forces to round out its reporting on
the impact of the elderly on taxes, provision of services for senior citizens, nursing homes
and life-styles.
Berkeley, CA
University of California-Berkeley, Oakland Post, KALX-FM
To publish an eight-page newspaper supplement on an under-covered community.
An advanced reporting class at Berkeley’s School of Journalism will create “Inside Oakland,” an
eight-page supplement to the weekly Oakland Post, which covers the city’s African-American
community. The class will use focus groups and other civic journalism techniques to get
feedback and story ideas.
Chicago, IL
The Chicago Reporter
To examine police-community relations.
In the aftermath of the death of Ryan Harris, age 11, in Chicago’s Englewood community, a
South Side neighborhood that frequently is the subject of news stories about murder, rape,
poverty and other urban ills, the paper will examine the state of police-community relations.