What’s Happening in Pew Projects

San Francisco, CA

Pacific News Service
The December election of Mayor Willie Brown marked the first time in San Francisco that a majority of Chinese-American voters cast their ballots for an African-American candidate. That is a major development for Bay Area politics, but it might have gone unheralded if not for the Pacific News Service’s new wire service that tracks the impact of ethnic voters.

New California Media is a partnership between Pacific News Service and more than 100 ethnic media. NCM distills the best reporting from its ethnic media collaborators and distributes the stories to its subscribers. NCM also collaborated with the Chinese American Voter Education Project on a series of Newsmaker Breakfasts with the Ethnic Media before and immediately after the Super Tuesday primary and on an exit poll of Chinese-speaking residents that ran in the San Francisco Chronicle.

NCM-generated stories have also appeared in Iran Times, Sing Tao Daily, BayView, Philippine News and other papers. It also forms the basis for regular columns in the San Francisco Examiner. NCM’s weekly TV show “In Search of Common Ground” produced both pre-election and post-election shows focused on the ethnic vote in the U.S., which aired over PBS, Asian language stations and California C-SPAN. Click on www.NCMonline.com.

Savannah, GA

Savannah Morning News
Savannah area legislators and community groups are taking action in response to the paper’s “Aging Matters” series on senior citizens. The series, launched in September after months of reporting, focus groups and polling, is examining nine areas of concern to senior citizens.

After an installment on seniors who are primary caregivers for grandchildren, Savannah’s congressman and state senator inaugurated a series of Saturday morning discussion groups to determine what services government could provide. Stories on nursing-home care prompted the city’s state representative to introduce legislation requiring higher ratios of nursing home staff per patient.

A local senior citizens advocacy group is coordinating services for the elderly and the paper is working with Hospice Savannah to recruit volunteer help for seniors in hospice care. The series is archived on www.savannahnow.com.
The paper is now reporting a new series on improving low-achieving schools.

Las Vegas/ Reno, NV

KLVX-TV, Las Vegas, KNPB-TV, Reno
The PBS affiliates broadcast their first live, statewide town hall Feb. 11 on the issue of electric utility deregulation. Viewers e-mailed, faxed and phoned in questions to three-member panels in Las Vegas and in Reno. In addition, a studio audience in Las Vegas questioned the panels, which included the head of the state’s largest utility and the chairman of the Public Utilities Commission.

Though ratings were typical for the time slot (a one rating and one share), KLVX news and public affairs manager Mitch Fox says there was a steady stream of phone callers through the broadcast and there were numerous requests for tapes of the show. See “Power to the People” at www.klvx.org, click on KLTV productions.

Concord, NH

New Hampshire Public Radio
NHPR has launched a web site to help the state’s residents understand electric utility deregulation and to calculate what deregulation will mean to their monthly electric bills. The site has three components, including an easy-to-follow primer on deregulation, an “electric bill estimator” and a “flashlight zone” with more detail. After its first three weeks, the website had 1,800 page views. Senior editor Jon Greenberg says, more importantly, people are using the site in the way NHPR had hoped – to learn about how deregulation will affect them.

The deregulation primer explains the process through six steps or “lessons,” such as “The Big Picture” and “The Price You Pay for Lower Rates.” Greenberg says there is some drop-off in the number of users between lessons 1 and 2, but those users who follow the guide as far as lesson 3 stick with it through lesson 6. Greenberg says this is good news because one of the project’s goals was to see whether it was possible to put a tutorial on the web; the usage patterns so far suggest it is. Visit www.nhpr.org, click on “Shock Value.”

Oregon

Public Broadcasting, Albany Democrat-Herald, La Grande Observer, Newport News-Times, Geneforum.org
The partners launched www.geneforum.org in March to coincide with Oregon Public Broadcasting’s first live call-in show on the issue of the ownership and use of human and plant genetic material. The Oregon legislature, having passed among the strictest genetic privacy laws in the nation in 1997, agreed to revisit the issue in 2001. The partners are hoping to involve citizens in the upcoming debate through their project, which includes focus groups and town meetings.

Morgan Holm, director of news and public affairs at Oregon Public Broadcasting, reports that the state legislature already has appointed a subcommittee to monitor their project through the year and report back to the 2001 legislature on what the partners find and how the law is standing up to scrutiny.

Springfield, VA

Newschannel 8
The station has decided to continue for another year its “Target Transportation” project, which has fostered a level of community dialogue. The station will continue its weekly reports on transportation and will develop other ways to cover, explain and communicate key transportation information.

Last year, with support from the Pew Center, the station polled 1,000 DC-area residents in the largest transportation-only public opinion poll in the area and broadcast a live 2-1/2 hour, prime-time special linking 500 people in Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia with decision-makers and experts.

La Crosse, WI

La Crosse Tribune
News events have pushed the topic of stray voltage into the paper, even though The Tribune’s project on the issue is still in the development stage. The paper plans to hold town meetings and online forums on the controversial and complex issue of how stray electrical voltage affects farmers in an effort to involve the farming community and power companies in potential solutions. But editor Chris Hardie sped up reporting on the issue when farmers began pressing the Wisconsin legislature for relief from the effects of stray voltage.

The paper plans to launch a web site dedicated to the issue. In the meantime, it is posting its news stories on a special “Stray Voltage” page of its regular web site. Hardie says it’s drawing hits from all over the country. To find the “Stray Voltage” page, click on special projects at www.lacrossetribune.com.

Chicago, IL

The Chicago Reporter
About 100 residents of the Englewood community turned out in January to discuss community policing and mental health services after The Reporter devoted its December issue to the topic. The investigative monthly focused on the neighborhood in the aftermath of the 1998 murder of 11-year-old Ryan Harris and the mistaken arrest of two boys, 7 and 8, for the crime.

The Reporter found that community policing is falling short of expectations. It also showed that inadequate mental health services contribute to the stress of living in the violent, impoverished neighborhood. With the Medill School of Journalism, the paper conducted a survey of high school students and found over 70 percent reported that a friend or family member had been a victim of violent crime. Yet there is no child psychiatrist on staff at the Englewood Mental Health Center.

The report was picked up by AP, WBEZ-FM, WGN-TV, the Sun-Times and the Tribune. The community meeting led to a follow-up story in The Reporter’s February issue.

Seattle, WA

The Seattle Times, KUOW-FM
With Seattle looking for a new police chief after protests disrupted the World Trade Organization meeting there, The Seattle Times is in a good position to report on what the community is seeking. The Times held a series of focus groups on what consensus-loving Seattle residents seek in a leader, as part of the Front Porch Forum project on leadership in the new millennium.

The project began in October with a series of stories in The Times and shows on KUOW that sought to define leadership and generate public discussion of what qualities the region wants and needs in its leaders to confront the more complex, more global century ahead. The Times has continued to use reader input in a less formal way since then. In February, for instance, the paper presented a series of profiles of African-American Seattle residents who, though not well known, are leaders in their communities.

Idaho

The Idaho Statesman, Idaho Spokesman-Review, Lewiston Morning Tribune, Idaho Falls Post Register, KTVB-TV in Boise, Idaho Public TV
With the Idaho legislature in session, reporters for the partner news organizations are following the issues that will come into play in a project on how rural Idaho will adapt to a changing economy. For instance, The Statesman’s metro editor Andrew Horan says the legislature is considering a measure that would extend the minimum wage to farm workers and another that would provide a tax cut to timber lands. He says the partners will confer after the session adjourns in early spring to plan the project.

Tampa, FL

The Weekly Planet, Speak Up Tampa Bay, University of South Florida, University of Tampa
The partners’ neighborhood news wire service “Public Life” now has 650 subscribers that include community groups as well as newspapers and radio stations. Editor Ben Eason says the wire has turned out to be a great way for grass roots organizations to communicate with each other and to get their stories into newsrooms in the Tampa Bay area.