Project Topic: Engagement


The Public Agenda, Tallahassee, FL 1995

The Public Agenda, Tallahassee, FL 1995

Partners:

Tallahassee Democrat
WCTV6 (CBS)
Florida State University
Florida A&M Universities

The second year of the three-year “Public Agenda” project trained more citizens to lead and participate in small group discussions and continued polling to be sure the concerns of all members of the diverse community were surfacing. For more details, please see Year One (1994) project descriptions.

Contacts:

Mimi Jones
Project Manager
The Public Agenda
1713 Silverwood Dr. 
Tallahassee, FL32301
Phone: (850) 942-7199 Read more


The Public Mind, Manhattan, KS

The Public Mind, Manhattan, KS 1995

Partners:

The Manhattan Mercury
KQLA-FM

The partners in “The Public Mind” project took a civic approach to exploring one local issue a month in depth and inviting citizens to discuss possible solutions. The series began, May 7, 1995, with an exploration of teenage binge drinking. In June, the topic was neighborhood associations; July, the student rental housing market and in September, a look at child care. 

In the first week of the month, the Mercury devoted a page to a status report on the issue; in the second week it gave experts’ perspectives; the third week it published case studies of individuals affected by the issue and the fourth week it invited the public to address the issue in a community forum, usually attended by six to 10 people. Follow-up stories explored solutions that were suggested. Read more


The Public Agenda, Tallahassee, FL 1994

The Public Agenda, Tallahassee, FL 1994

Partners:

Tallahassee Democrat
WCTV6 (CBS) 
Florida State University 
Florida A&M Universities 

A three-year project, “The Public Agenda” involved thousands of Tallahassee citizens in discussing and seeking solutions to a wide range of issues facing the city.

Project leaders at the Democrat and WCTV used a host of tools – small group discussions, frequent polls, large forums and on-line chats, among them – to determine which issues citizens considered most critical and then engage those citizens in addressing the issues in a variety of ways. A community coordinator, Mimi Jones, organized citizen participation. Read more


NPR Election Project

NPR Election Project 1994 

Partners:

NPR Election Project

National Public Radio, known for the extraordinary depth and seriousness of its public issues coverage, made changes in its approach to political reporting to improve its coverage of the 1994 election campaign.

The Washington, DC-based network worked with member stations in five cities and two statewide networks to provide high quality, issue-directed reporting based on an agenda determined by citizens.

The network helped its member stations form partnerships with other local news organizations to poll citizens, hold issues forums and town meetings, create advisory panels and use call-in shows to generate citizen input and deliberation, which was used to enhance national and regional political reporting. Specific activities and results varied from area to area: Read more


Illinois Voter Project, Chicago, IL

Illinois Voter Project, Chicago, IL 1993 

Partners:

University of Illinois
League of Women Voters

The partners teamed up for the Illinois Voter Project (IVP), an effort to make election coverage more issues-focused and responsive to voters rather than candidates. The university conducted a statewide opinion survey before the March 1994 primary to determine citizens’ major concerns. In June, the partners began a series of 14 focus groups designed to refine those findings, identifying in greater detail what citizens see as problems in their communities and possible solutions.  Read more


Tapping Civic Life, Wichita, KS

Tapping Civic Life, Wichita, KS 1993 

Partners:

The Wichita Eagle
The Harwood Group

This groundbreaking project created what might be called the infrastructure of civic journalism – a set of tools for uncovering the civic life of a community and tapping into it. The Eagle set out with no less a goal than improving the quality of civic life in Wichita by strengthening and promoting public dialogue and better reflecting that dialogue in the newspaper’s pages. It asked The Harwood Group (now the Harwood Institute for Public Innovation, of Bethesda, MD) to help it identify the origins of public discourse and determine how journalists could use the information in a meaningful way. Read more