Pioneering Coverage of Economic, Science, Energy Issues
New Models for Wire Stories

Projects Push Technology to Trigger Community Interaction

Washington, D.C., October 28, 1999 — A zeal for creating new models of journalism and innovative uses of the Web to report on pressing, but underreported, community issues distinguish 15 new initiatives that will receive funding next year from the Pew Center for Civic Journalism, the center announced today.

This year’s projects were selected by the Pew Center’s Advisory Board from a record number of proposals submitted.

“The 57 proposals demonstrated an impressive breadth and depth of civic journalism innovation bubbling up in regional news organizations,” said Jan Schaffer, the Pew Center’s executive director. “These were all bona-fide initiatives to report aggressively on difficult issues and resourcefully involve the community and new technologies in the reporting process.”

Notable among the efforts funded are:

• More ambitious outreach to the public — in framing issues, seeking input and mapping alternative news sources.
• Strong newsroom appetites for tackling complicated topics in new ways, including race relations, suburban sprawl, environmental hazards, genome technology and utility deregulation.
• Creative uses of the Internet, computer kiosks, WebTV and other technologies to involve citizens directly in public policy choices.

“Especially striking this year is the eagerness to break out of the box to create new models of news content that can be prototypes for other newsrooms,” said Jack Nelson, the Pew Center’s Advisory Board Chairman and Chief Washington Correspondent of the Los Angeles Times.

“The range of ideas showed civic journalism’s contribution to developing new forms of journalism that examine citizen concerns in productive ways,” 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 $240,000 has been allocated for the 15 initiatives selected for 2000, an average of about $16,000 each.

The news organizations came up with the ideas and the newsgathering techniques outlined in their proposals.

Creating New Models

Wisconsin Public Television, Madison, WI
$15,000
To expand the use of WebTV interactive technology to cover the 2000 elections.

WPT, the first television station in the country to insert WebTV links on an ongoing basis into its live programming, will experiment with embedding WebTV in all of its Election 2000 coverage. By combining television viewing with Internet browsing on a standard TV screen, WPT will enable viewers to access additional information, such as voting records and financial disclosure forms; interact with candidates, journalists and other viewers; participate in online surveys; interact online during live broadcasts and continue the discussion of issues long after the broadcasts have aired. WPT seeks to learn what viewers want from election coverage and when they need more information. It also seeks to experiment further with the frontiers of digital broadcasting.

New Hampshire Public Radio, Concord, NH
$20,000
To design engaging coverage of utility deregulation and an online electric bill estimator.

NHPR hopes to build on last year’s successful Online Tax Calculator, which helped citizens understand the costs of tax reform bills, by tackling the complicated issue of electric utility deregulation. It aims to produce light-hearted radio vignettes to engage and educate listeners about the subject and it will create an online electric bill estimator that will help residential, small commercial and large industrial electricity users understand how their bills might change under deregulation.

The Colorado Springs Gazette, Richmond (Ind.) Palladium-Item, Earlham College
$17,000
To develop more civic uses of wire stories.

The papers in two very different markets seek to create and test, with reader input, new models for using wire stories on state, national and international issues in ways that will offer citizens opportunities to repond to the news stories in meaningful ways. The partners will also explore how to supplement wire coverage in both their print and online editions by using the Internet as an information source.”

Pacific News Service, New California Media, San Francisco, CA
$20,000
To create a multi-media news beat on the role of ethnic voters in the year 2000.

The partners plan to track the role of ethnic voters in the 2000 presidential race, digest the best of ethnic media reportage on campaign politics and share the information with mainstream journalists via New California Media, a California-based association of more than 100 ethnic media. Reports on the “Year of the Ethnic Vote” will appear on NCM’s weekly half-hour talk show, distributed to PBS stations around the country, on NCMonline.com, the first multi-ethnic portal on the Internet and in columns in the San Francisco Examiner.

WHYY-TV, WHYY-FM,Philadelphia, PA
$20,000
To create a model for news and public affairs coverage of disenfranchised communities.

The public broadcasters seek to redefine the concept of community — specifically disenfranchised communities — away from geography and demography and towards shared areas of concern. The goal is to design programming — and eventually an innovative regional news service — that identifies issues and communities in new and more meaningful ways and better defines content and forms of distribution to meet those needs. A goal would be to not only uncover issues but help the region’s citizens engage in solving problems.

Covering Science, Environment

Oregon Public Broadcasting, Portland, OR
With the Albany Democrat-Herald, La Grande Observer, Newport News-Times, Geneforum.org.
$15,000
To create opportunities for dialogue and information about genome science.

The public television and radio network seeks to extend the tools of civic journalism to science reporting on the eve of the state legislature taking up the ownership and use of human and plant genetic material. They hope to build on Oregon’s history of debating such public policy issues as land use and health care by developing a replicable model that will create opportunities for citizen input and education about the choices and policy implications in the field of genetic technology. Information will be gathered via in-depth radio stories, call-in programs, focus groups and regional town meetings and presented to the 2001 Legislature.

La Crosse Tribune, La Crosse, WI
$3,000
To examine the causes and solutions to the farm hazards of stray voltage.

The newspaper seeks to expand its civic journalism work to environmental reporting by engaging its community in an examination of the effects of stray voltage on farm animals. The Tribune would use the Web, town meetings, and a task force of citizens and experts to create an information clearinghouse on a controversial and complex agricultural topic and to involve the farm community and power companies in potential solutions.

Hot-Button Issues: Education, Sprawl, Race

Savannah Morning News, WSVH-Peach State Radio, WSOK radio, Savannah, GA
$18,000
To generate community discussion on how to improve low-achieving schools.

Through investigative reporting, surveys, focus groups, community forums and action teams, the news organizations hope to engage the community in new ideas to fix a failing education system. The paper’s web site will feature a database of school statistics, message boards to foster discussion and a teen web site to engage students. The civic journalism efforts will parallel “2001: A Learning Odyssey,” a newspaper-wide effort, involving other departments, to seek solutions to the city’s education problems.

Yakima Herald-Republic, Yakima, WA
$20,000
To engage a divided community in the subject of race relations.

An influx of mostly Mexican immigrants in the last 20 years has produced keen tensions between Yakima’s Hispanic and Anglo communities. Hispanics now comprise more than a third of the area’s population yet anti-Hispanic sentiment is pervasive and resulted in a backlash when the paper earlier tried to report on race relations. The paper seeks to tackle the subject again, using the tools of civic journalism to survey public attitudes and create a community discussion that might enhance the understanding of other points of view and explore perceptions and myths.

The Sun-Sentinel, CBS 4, and Newsradio 610, Fort Lauderdale, FL
$30,000
To explore the challenges facing South Florida’s burgeoning suburban population.

Using community discussion groups, focus groups, web interactivity, polling, computer-assisted and beat reporting, the media partners seek to define the issues and options for the region’s suburban communities they try to cope with massive racial and ethnic shifts, suburban sprawl, an aging population, and dynamic changes in technology and commerce.

Civic Mapping

The Missoulian, Missoula, MT
$5,000
To deploy computerized kiosks to gather public information about issues.

The newspaper wants to create a new, interactive resource by locating six computer kiosks around the community that would allow it to informally survey the public, get feedback on issues, increase citizens’ knowledge of issues and events and expand access to sources and community voices for reporting.

The Anniston Star, Anniston, AL
$15,000
To extend its civic mapping into cybermapping and online forums.

The Star seeks to use technology to foster more involvement with readers through electronic forums about issues and electronic discussion groups about the news that could function as community bulletin boards. It also proposes to use these online interactions to expand its map of unelected opinion leaders and core community sources. Its goal is to expand its electronic civic map to include 10 percent of its region’s population.

Covering Economic Issues

Huntington (WV) Herald-Dispatch and West Virginia Public Television and Public Radio
$18,000
To launch an in-depth examination of the state’s future without coal.

The media partners plan to use polling and town meetings and a web site to report on the economic implications of the state’s running out of easy-to-mine coal. Among their goals is the creation of a Web database that would tell people how the state has used severance taxes from mining companies. The journalists will look at what has happened to counties that have already run out of coal, how other states have survived the departure of major industries, and what officials are doing to plan for the future. They hope the information and conversation will help state residents and officials develop an action plan for the state.

The Idaho Statesman, Idaho Spokesman-Review, Lewiston Morning Tribune, Idaho Falls Post Register, KTVB-TV in Boise, Idaho Public Television
$20,000
To involve the public in the state’s changing economy.

Through polling, town meetings and possibly a team of ambassadors, the media partners seek to educate and involve readers and viewers in an examination of the two Idahoes – rural and urban. The state’s Old West economy, based on timber, mining, and agriculture, is losing ground to world oversupply, decreased prices and technology changes. Meanwhile, the New West economy, based on high-tech industries and tourism in Southwest Idaho, is rebounding. Rural job losses and urban growth stress pit urban lawmakers against rural legislators in funding battles. The media partners seek to involve citizens and candidates in a discussion of what needs to be done to help rural communities redefine their economies.

KLVX-TV, Las Vegas and KNPB-TV, Reno, NV
$20,000
To conduct a live statewide town hall on energy deregulation.

On the eve of Nevadans being required to choose their own provider of electricity, the PBS stations want to help consumers ask questions, get answers and navigate their way through a complicated public policy issue.

R&D for News Content

Since its inception in 1993, the Pew Center has supported 92 civic journalism initiatives that have helped develop new kinds of news content that gives ordinary people a voice in coverage of their communities, helps them identify problems and deliberate solutions, and empowers them to become active civic participants.

The Center shares the lessons learned from these experiments at its workshops for journalists and journalism educators, through its publications and videos, in newsroom and classroom training, and in speaking and writing about the evolution of civic journalism.

The Pew Center, located in Washington, D.C., is an initiative of The Pew Charitable Trusts. The Trusts, based in Philadelphia, make strategic investments to help organizations and citizens develop practical solutions to difficult problems. In 1998, with $4.7 billion in assets, the Trusts granted $213 million to 298 non-profit organizations.