What’s Happening in Pew Projects

Portland, ME

Portland Press Herald, Maine Sunday Telegram
After a story on how teens struggle with the pressure to have sex sooner, reporter Barbara Walsh is finding some unconventional ways of getting the voices of ordinary teenagers for her series, “On the Verge.” Walsh, along with community coordinator Jessica Tomlinson, manned a booth at the Old Port Festival, in June, interviewing teenagers and asking them to complete surveys about their views of family life. In May, Walsh and Tomlinson held an open forum at the Portland Arts and Technology High School. More than 60 students completed surveys there. The paper also distributed cameras so the students could document their relationships with their families. One student asked if he could use the camera to photograph the delivery of his baby, due July 1.

The pictures will be posted on the paper’s Teengo website, which has soared in popularity. The site attracted 60,000 hits in May, double the number of hits in April. One of its most popular pages is “Views,” which features essays on life in high school. See www.portland.com/teengo.

Anniston, AL

The Anniston Star
The paper is expanding its civic mapping project to include readers who use the newspaper primarily online. The “cybermap” is being compiled mainly through reader e-mails. The paper is also using Pew funding to improve the interactivity of its web site.

The Star’s first interactive project was an online survey, “Six Questions for the Millennium.” Respondents who submitted their names, addresses and e-mail addresses were added to the “map” and some were interviewed for a story on the survey that ran New Year’s Day.

More names were added when the paper joined with several other Alabama newspapers in the Consolidated Publishing chain to host a special stock-car racing site during the Talladega racing season. The paper is still working on ways to involve online users in live forums and discussions groups.

The project has led the chain to create a new position, Online Director. The new director Geni Certain, previously managing editor, says her goal is to use the papers’ web sites “to bring our community into a more energetic involvement in the conduct of civic affairs…to provide not only the information they need but also the vehicle for their participation.” See www.annistonstar.com

Huntington, WV

The Herald-Dispatch, West Virginia Public Television
The media partners met monthly this spring with an advisory group that includes professors from Marshall and West Virginia Universities and with state and federal officials to help shape news coverage and a town meeting on the future of the state’s economy amid a declining coal industry. Mason-Dixon Polling & Research Inc. will conduct a poll in August to learn more about citizen’s perceptions of coal and the economy.

Using FOIA requests, the partners are collecting figures on coal severance taxes from the state’s counties and municipalities. They will compile these into a searchable web database so that citizens can see how that money has been spent.

The public broadcasting network has partnered with Bell Atlantic to use Bell’s fiber-optic network for a live broadcast of a Sept. 21 town meeting, which is planned amid publication of the paper’s series. See www.aftercoal.org.

Concord, NH

New Hampshire Public Radio
Once the New Hampshire legislature deregulated electric utilities in May, NHPR revamped its “Shock Value” web site so that it now allow consumers to figure out how deregulation can save them money in addition to being a primer on the issue.

Senior Editor Jon Greenberg says the primer format still enables users to view information, step by step. But, now, the final step allows users to leave their e-mail addresses so NHPR can notify them with new developments that could mean utility bill savings.

The site also features a bulletin board discussion area that allows ratepayers to post messages that are automatically forwarded to an e-mail box set up for state legislators on the deregulation committee. Check www.nhpr.org, click on “Shock Value.”

Philadelphia, PA

WHYY-TV and Radio
The stations’ News and Public Affairs Service has conducted focus groups with labor union members and catastrophic illness victims to test their theory of providing news for communities that eschew traditional demographic and geographic definitions. News Director Paul Gluck says the focus groups not only confirmed that these communities shared common needs and concerns despite the members’ varied age, race and residence, they also generated story ideas and frames for covering these communities in a meaningful way.

This fall, Gluck says the stations plan to produce radio and TV stories about cultural biases that prevent people from seeking diagnosis and treatment from mainstream health care. In addition, WHYY is designing a model that uses focus groups to provide ongoing public input to the station’s News and Public Affairs Service. The web site is www.whyy.org.

Richmond, IN/ Dayton, OH

Palladium-Item, Dayton Daily News, Earlham College
In May, Palladium-Item readers saw the first fruits of a project to experiment with making wire stories more useful. The paper ran a two-page spread on the situation in Sierra Leone, compiled from carefully selected wire reports and additional research by Earlham College interns. The package included reading lists on the troubled country and ideas for “How You Can Help,” with the names and addresses of organizations that send medical kits and other items to Sierra Leone.

The Sierra Leone report was the first of six special pages the Earlham interns are putting together to experiment with using wire service stories in a better, more civic, way. Focus groups are reviewing each package to help the team find better ways to select wire stories of interest to area readers. Earlham Professor Cheryl Gibbs says newsroom response has been favorable. Gibbs has also begun working with the Dayton Daily News, which joined the project after a leadership change at the Colorado Springs Gazette, one of the original partners.

Madison, WI

Wisconsin Public Television
Wisconsin’s spring State Supreme Court election gave WPT a chance to test an effort to embed WebTV links in all of its Election 2000 coverage. During a March candidates’ forum, WPT built features into its broadcast that gave viewers with a WebTV Plus set-top box a chance to interact with the program. WebTV Plus viewers saw a visual graphic superimposed over the broadcast picture. They could use the graphic like the navigation bar on a computer screen. Or they could reduce the bar to a small icon and watch the program without enhanced content.

WPT limited the amount of content to keep viewer attention focused on the program. The statewide network provided just three links, which enabled viewers to see brief bios of the candidates, to get information about the forum and its organizers and to view definitions of legal terms that were likely to come up during the forum. WPT will fine tune its experiment for the fall, when all campaign broadcasts will include WebTV content.

Missoula, MT

Missoulian
Local government reporter Rob Chaney carted half a dozen computer terminals to polling places for Montana’s June 6 primary. The goal was to field test portable polling kiosks, the key part of an innovative plan to get public voices in the paper.

The computers have been equipped with software that allows reporters to program survey questions on any topic and choose the type of answers they want – multiple choice, true or false, even essay questions. The computers are then placed in cabinets so they can be readily transported and passersby can easily take the survey. The goal is to give reporters timely, candid public input for their stories.

Chaney envisions the polling kiosks being placed in a variety of places: Senior citizen residences to ask about social security; high school cafeterias to explore youth issues; sports stadiums where fans could name their favorite player.