Project Topic: Engagement

Citizens’ Links for News, St. Paul, MN 1999

Partners:

Internews Interactive
KTCA-TV

Pew Center funds supported the use of videoconferencing technology that allowed KTCA to originate broadcasts from new and unconventional locations and to connect citizens from far-flung parts of the large, rural state. The result was innovative programming with groundbreaking levels of interactivity.

The first broadcast to use the new technology, in January 1999, linked newly elected Gov. Jesse Ventura, in the KTCA studios in St. Paul, with citizens in Bemidji, Mankato, Duluth, Windom and Minneapolis for a discussion of his new tax policies. Read more

Civic Mapping, Anniston, AL 1999

Partners:

Anniston Star

The Star used civic mapping techniques to generate a database of more than 600 informal community leaders from churches, parent-teacher groups, civil rights organizations and other sources. The database could be searched by organization, community and area of interest and it was centrally located in the newsroom so any reporter could use it to find community sources for a story.

The first big pay-off came March 2, 1999, the day the Alabama Legislature began its annual session. Instead of the usual lawmakers and lobbyists, the front page featured ideas gathered from a forum where 12 of these informal leaders met with all five members of the area’s legislative delegation and raised issues they wanted addressed by the lawmakers. Read more

Harwood Civic Mapping Seminars, Denver, CO 1999

Partners:

The Harwood Institute
Pew Center for Civic Journalism

This series of three two-day seminars taught reporters and editors from six newsrooms how to improve their capacity to understand and interpret their communities, using the tools and techniques of civic mapping. Mapping helps journalists go beyond official and quasi-official sources of news by identifying and exploring other, less formal layers of civic life. The approach was first outlined by The Harwood Institute (formerly The Harwood Group) in “Tapping Civic Life: How to Report First and Best What’s Happening in Your Community,” a workbook based on 1994 research at The Wichita Eagle supported and published by the Pew Center. Read more

Neighborhood News Network, Tampa, FL 1999

Partners:

Tampa Bay Weekly Planet

Using a database of more than 300 community groups and media organizations, the Weekly Planet created an email “wire service” for community news to compliment the “Public Life” newsletter launched earlier with Pew support. Grass roots organizations would send the Planet staff news about what they were doing and, about once a week, the Planet would package those stories and send them out via email to some 650 subscribers. The hope was that the community groups would find out where they had projects in common and how they could work together, while at the same time their stories would receive attention from more mainstream media organizations. Read more

Front Porch Forum, Seattle, WA 1998

Partners:

The Seattle Times
KCTS
KPLU-FM
KUOW-FM

Following up on the 1997 mock trial on growth in the Puget Sound, the partners confronted longstanding assumptions about the issue with a series called, “Growth: Enough already?”

The mock jury in the 1997 “Puget Sound 2020” project had startled the partners by ignoring the common wisdom about growth – that it can’t be avoided; only managed. Participants said they favored stopping growth altogether. So the partners decided to explore whether that was really possible. Read more

Civic Discourse, Tampa, FL 1997

Partners:

The Weekly Planet
Speak Up Tampa Bay
University of South Florida
Study Circles Resources Center

The partners continued their quest to bring civic journalism to the Tampa Bay with the convening of a “framing” conference in the spring of 1997. About 350 citizens attended three days of town hall meetings with experts and journalists and generated a 20-page list of the area’s strengths and weaknesses. 

The project suffered a setback, a short time later, when the lead partner, WTVT, dropped out after a change in leadership, leaving the alternative, entertainment-focused newspaper, Weekly Planet, scrambling to keep the momentum going. Editor Ben Eason launched a more serious alternative paper, a quarterly called Public Life, which carried news from neighborhood associations and civic groups and explored issues such as the media’s responsibility to the community. Eventually, with additional Pew support in later funding cycles, Eason used the network of civic organizations he’d connected with to start an email based wire service, helping the groups connect to each other as well as get wider circulation for their concerns and events among media organizations. Read more

Sanford Phase II: The Search for Solutions, Portland, ME 1997

Partners:

The Portland Newspapers
WGME-TV 
Maine Public TV 
Maine Public Radio

What started as an election year effort to get citizen voices in campaign coverage entered a new phase in 1997, as some 40 residents of Sanford, Maine, who’d been empaneled for the “Maine Citizens Campaign” refused to disband when the journalism project was over. The group began a second year exploring issues and meeting with public officials in hopes of taking action for positive civic change. Read more

Front Porch Forum, Seattle, WA 1997

Partners:

The Seattle Times
KCTS
KPLU-FM
KUOW-FM

With all the Seattle area had going for it in the mid-90’s, there was a sense that the region could not sustain its enviable quality of life into the 21st Century. The “Front Porch Forum” partners saw this as an opportunity to expand their civic journalism effort beyond politics and elections and into community-based decision-making about the future. “Puget Sound 2020” involved more than 2,000 citizens in imagining what the region should look like in 20 years and what it would take to make it happen. Read more