Project Topic: Project Topic

Long Beach Beyond 2000 — Unity in Our Community, Long Beach, CA

 in Race Relations

Long Beach Beyond 2000 — Unity in Our Community, Long Beach, CA 1997

Partners:

Long Beach Press-Telegram
Cablevision Industries, Inc.
Long Beach Community Partnership
Leadership Long Beach

First, 25 reporters and columnists each hosted three focus group of about 10 people each. They asked open-ended questions about what issues most concerned people, what solutions they’d propose and how government and other institutions could help. From the approximately 750 people participating in the 75 focus groups, six issues emerged as chief concerns: education, safety, neighborhood quality, race, immigration and youth. The findings were used to formulate a survey of 1,400 Long Beach residents, divided into four groups: 350 Asian, 350 African-American, 350 Latino and 350 white. Read more

Racial Change in Chicago, Chicago, IL

 in Race Relations


Racial Change in Chicago, Chicago, IL 1997

Partners:

The Chicago Reporter
WGN-TV
WNUA-FM

The partners drew a subtle and nuanced portrait of Wrightwood, a previously white neighborhood that had become 50 percent African-American fairly quickly in the early ’90’s, as a case study in racial change in a community. The Reporter, a monthly paper that uses investigative techniques to cover race and poverty, led the team, conducting a statistical analysis that showed the impact of racial change on neighborhood schools and home values. Then, reporters added civic tools to their reporting – convening a meeting of 30 civic leaders and ordinary residents to get input and spending months in Wrightwood interviewing and re-interviewing dozens of residents about their concerns, problems and need, about how they get information, about where conflict exists and what is behind it. Read more

Eyes on the Bronx, Bronx, NY

 in Race Relations


Eyes on the Bronx, Bronx, NY 1997

Partners: 

The Bronx Journal
BronxNet
Community Cable
Lehman College
The City University of New York

BronxNet community access cable TV joined forces with the unique Multilingual Journalism program at Lehman College (CUNY) to expand its coverage of this underserved New York borough that, by itself, would have been one of the 10 largest U.S. cities.

Pew funding helped the partners launch “Eyes on the Bronx,” a multimedia effort to cover the Bronx’s diverse communities using civic journalism. A weekly Spanish-language news magazine began airing in April 1997. The cable service also produced periodic specials, such as a 90-minute program on AIDS in the Bronx. The program, “The Changing Face of AIDS,” was produced, in part, by students in the Multilingual Journalism program and was followed by a call-in program, presented on one cable channel in English and simultaneously translated into Spanish on another channel. Bilingual educators and counselors staffed special phone lines and made referrals to appropriate organizations. Read more

Changing Tides, Aberdeen, WA ’97

 in Economy

Changing Tides, Aberdeen, WA 1997

Partners:

The Daily World of Aberdeen 
Channel 20
TCI Cablevision

Political, economic and environmental forces were changing life on the Southern Olympic Peninsula and its paper decided to help citizens join together to meet the resulting challenges. Partnering with cable channel 20 – the only station in the county – the Daily World launched “Changing Tides” in April 1997, a two-year effort to chart a new course for the region.

The series debuted in the paper’s annual “Perspectives” edition, with nearly 100 pages in six inside sections on the region’s logging and fishing history and how that history related to present day issues, when environmental laws had reduced opportunities in those areas. Then the paper engaged citizens in discussing the changes and their impact through a series of three focus groups with 30 people chosen randomly from three separate areas of the region. The paper covered the focus-group discussions in front-page stories in August 1997 and also invited readers to add their input to the citizens’ comments. The paper printed responses in a Sunday feature, “It’s Your Call,” which became a regular weekly feature. The paper also used the input to develop questions for a telephone poll of 400 people. Poll results were published in December and were discussed at community forums. A final survey of 130 people recognized as community leaders – elected officials, educators, union leaders and others – was conducted by mail in March 1998 and showed the officials struggling to arrive at a common vision for the region’s future. Read more

We the City, Dallas, TX

 in Citizenship

We the City, Dallas, TX 1997

Partners:

The Arlington Morning News
The Dallas Morning News
KERA-FM
KERA-TV
The University of Texas, Arlington

The partners seized on an initiative by the city of Arlington to increase citizen participation with “We the City,” a civic approach to covering the city’s move toward a deliberative model of government. The first stories, Feb. 7, 1997, explained how the media partners’ civic approach would track and complement the government’s efforts to engage citizens, which included the convening of neighborhood focus groups to replace the more limited public hearings before City Council. Through the spring, the partners sponsored a “civic inventory” of 900 residents, conducted by the university’s School of Urban and Public Affairs, to uncover the role of informal community leaders, the importance of incidental meetings among neighbors, and the impact of absentee landlords and renters on a community. The inventory provided a baseline for assessing and comparing the quality of life in various neighborhoods. The partners did stories on issues that surfaced through the inventory and the neighborhood focus groups, including code enforcement, growth and development. Their stories also reviewed what the city’s efforts had accomplished and looked at how the city could further involve citizens in their government. Read more

The Public Agenda, Tallahassee, FL 1996

 in Engagement

The Public Agenda, Tallahassee, FL 1996

Partners:

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

The third year of the “Public Agenda” project ended with a hand-off to the community. Over its three-year span, the project involved more than 1,000 people in 15 discussion groups. A final poll of 353 adults in the Tallahassee area showed the project appeared to have contributed to positive changes in community attitudes and behavior. The poll found that about one third of area residents had heard of the project. Participation in some aspect of the project – whether joining a discussion group or attending a public meeting – registered at seven percent but that represented a doubling over the three years of the project, from three percent in 1995.  Read more

Soapbox: A Guide to Civic Journalism at The Spokesman-Review, Spokane, WA

 in Engagement

Soapbox: A Guide to Civic Journalism at The Spokesman-Review, Spokane, WA 1996

Partners:

Spokesman-Review 

One of the early innovators in developing and using civic journalism tools, the Spokesman-Review embarked on a project to foster their growth in other newsrooms. With Pew support, the paper hired an intern specifically to advance civic journalism outreach. During her year in Spokane, the intern worked with community groups, helped organize a forum to make the paper more accessible to citizens, helped edit contributors to the paper’s reader-written opinion pages and wrote opinion pieces herself. Read more

We the People/Wisconsin, Madison, WI 1996

 in Engagement

We the People/Wisconsin, Madison, WI 1996

Partners:

Wisconsin StateJournal
Wisconsin Public TV
Wisconsin Public Radio
WISC-TV (CBS)
Wood Communication Group

In the spring, a forum allowed citizens to question candidates for the Wisconsin Supreme Court in “You Be the Judge,” broadcast from the high court’s chambers. Citizens got the chance to assess the performance, structure and financing of the state’s public university system and recommend a course for its future in “The Future of the UW System.” Town hall meetings were held on campuses statewide and citizen recommendations were given to the UW regents. Read more