What’s Happening in Pew Projects

Spokane, WA

Partners: The Spokesman-Review, University of Wisconsin-Madison

The Spokesman-Review is using civic mapping tools in a new way – to map “key moments” in the lives of young people, moments when they are most likely to get off track and get involved in damaging behavior. After a series of roundtable discussions with people who work with youth, the paper developed a list of five “chronologic” key moments and five “developmental” moments. The chronologic list includes conception to birth, ages 0 to 3, age 10, the first day of 7th grade, and adolescent rights of passage. The developmental list includes making friends, major moves, times of loss, first failures and first successes.

Reporters are searching for people who provide examples of key moment successes and key moment failures. They hope to produce stories, sometime next year, that will include information about what kind of support is needed at various key moments, how to know if kids are going off-track and where holes exist in social services for kids at crucial ages.

Portland, ME

The Portland Press Herald and Maine Sunday Telegram

“A slice of pizza for a slice of your life” was the come-on the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram used to assemble young people as part of its efforts to build an online community for Maine teenagers. About 50 teens attended the pizza night in September. They talked about the stresses of being teenagers and were given disposable cameras to record their lives. Pictures from the cameras and essays from the teenagers will be posted on the paper’s teen web page this fall. Teens from around the state will also be able to chat with one another through the web site.

Reporter Barbara Walsh led the 2-1/2 hour pizza night conversation and will use the information in a series on teenage life in Maine, scheduled to run this fall. Among the teens’ issues were the high suicide rate in Maine, the increasing divorce rate and eating disorders.

Anniston, AL

The Anniston Star

When the Calhoun County Sheriff’s Department wanted to plan an anti-school violence rally, The Star was able to provide a list of student leaders who could organize the event. The Star tapped its database of informal community leaders, generated by a civic mapping project supported by the Pew Center, and found 16 students who became the event’s steering committee. The rally on Aug. 16 – the day before school resumed in Calhoun County – featured students from Pearl, Mississippi, and Conyers, Georgia, who’d been wounded by gunfire in school shootings.

Minneapolis, MN

Partners: Internews Interactive, KTCA-TV

KTCA-TV used Internews videoconferencing technology to link communities all over Minnesota for a series of broadcasts on the farm crisis. The series culminated in an August forum that featured both U.S. Senators and the Secretary of Agriculture speaking to a studio audience in Minneapolis, linked with audiences at the State Fair and in two rural, agricultural towns. Participants discussed possible solutions to the poor economic situation in the state’s rural areas.

This fall, KTCA will be working with other media partners to take a new approach to covering youth violence. The station plans to use videoconferencing equipment to look over the shoulders of reporters interviewing experts on the issue; at the same time, it will eavesdrop on conversations between groups of teenagers discussing the issue. A broadcast would bring the reporters and teenagers together to see how the reporters’ information stands up to the flesh-and-blood responses of the teenagers.

Springfield, VA

Newschannel 8

The station is beginning to gather material from commuters in the Washington, DC, area for a special on traffic congestion to air in November. The 24-hour, all-news station will interview drivers on their daily commute and ask what question they would most like the region’s transportation officials to answer. As the culmination of its “Target Transportation” project, the station will then invite transportation leaders from Maryland, Virginia and Washington to its studio to answer the questions on the spot. Earlier this year, the station’s telephone poll of 1,000 area residents, funded by the Pew Center, found that traffic is twice as likely as any other issue to be mentioned as the problem that most impacts daily life in the nation’s capital.

Seattle, WA

Partners: Seattle Times, KUOW-FM

The Seattle Times plans to launch its series on leadership in October and public radio station KUOW-FM will begin a series of broadcasts on the subject. The two partners plan to organize a public forum on leadership in early 2000. Meanwhile, “Front Porch Forum” coordinator Marion Woydovich is working on making the partners’ web site more interactive to stimulate online conversations about leadership this fall.

In a setback, public television partner KCTS has dropped out of the “Front Porch Forum,” citing insufficient funds for public affairs programs. Woydovich says the station’s withdrawal is a big disappointment, noting that the “Front Porch Forum” was the last locally produced public affairs programming on KCTS.

Binghamton, NY

Partners: WSKG Public Broadcasting, the Press & Sun-Bulletin

WSKG wrapped up its series of reports on end-of-life issues, Aug. 19, with a 90-minute live simulcast on radio and TV. Listeners and viewers could call in or e-mail to a panel of some 30 experts questions on the medical, legal, financial, ethical and spiritual issues surrounding the end of life. Each of the experts had appeared on earlier “Care & Consequences” broadcasts. Radio features from the project aired Aug. 17 on WSKG-FM.

WSKG and the Press & Sun-Bulletin are planning two civic journalism workshops – one for professionals and one for citizens – on Oct. 25, in connection with the project.

Bronx, NY

Partners: BronxNet, The Bronx Journal

BronxNet plans to launch in October a daily two-hour call-in show, “Bronx Talk AM,” that will be broadcast on the community-access cable channel and, simultaneously, on its web site. BronxNet executive director Jim Carney says the show will include legislative updates from Bronx assemblymen in Albany and remote feeds from borough leaders using teleconferencing equipment, as well as regular reports on seniors, youths and high school sports.

Carney describes the show as the “new technology arm of ‘Eyes on the Bronx’,” a news magazine BronxNet began producing in 1997 with Pew Center support.

Tampa, FL

Partners: The Weekly Planet, Speak Up Tampa Bay, University of South Florida, University of Tampa

In June, the partnership launched its neighborhood “news wire,” to help create a higher profile for local community news in the Tampa Bay area’s major media outlets. The “wire,” called “Public Life,” takes the form of a newsletter full of leads for local stories that is e-mailed to community groups and news organizations in Hillsborough and Pinellas Counties. The partners started with an e-mail list of 120 addresses. By August, that had grown to 300 addresses.

The story ideas come from more than 100 grass-roots organizations in the area. The stories gain wider circulation simply by being included in Public Life. The hope, though, is that other media will spotlight some of the stories, thus reaching an even larger audience. Recently, a local community radio station interviewed neighborhood activists about a story first reported in Public Life – an effort to save an historic area from development.

Chicago, IL

The Chicago Reporter

The newspaper is in the process of analyzing almost 10 years worth of crime statistics and calls for service in Chicago’s Englewood section, a crime-ridden neighborhood where police-community tensions were heightened over the 1998 slaying of 11-year-old Ryan Harris and the crime’s aftermath. Police initially charged two young boys with the crime but later dropped the charges.

The Reporter’s project will include a reconstruction of the police investigation of the Harris murder and an exploration of overall relations between the police and the community. The paper plans to conduct a telephone survey of Englewood residents about their personal experiences with crime, using questions developed in meetings with community leaders. The Reporter will then compare the survey with its analysis of the community’s crime statistics to look for trends and correlation. The stories are to run in December.

Elmira, NY

Partners: Elmira Star-Gazette, The Sabre Radio Group

The Star-Gazette plans to hold a community forum in October featuring character education specialist Louis Martinez. Martinez’s first visit, in March, to the Elmira area helped inspire the paper’s “Kids & Character” series, supported by the Pew Center. At the fall forum, Martinez will meet with students and parents, principals and counselors, police and judges on the topic of student behavior and instilling positive values in young people.