Lawrence is Growing, Lawrence, KS 2001 

Partners:

Lawrence Journal-World
6News
J-W Web Works

With “Lawrence is Growing,” the partners helped citizens of the university town, long polarized on the issue of growth, find common ground and make concrete proposals to public officials on how to manage growth.

The six-month project began April 15, 2001, with a three-week series about the history of growth in Lawrence, alternatives for future growth and how other communities had managed it. Stories appeared daily in the paper and on TV, while the Web site offered content from both as well as interactive elements including bulletin boards for comment and a clickable map showing how Lawrence had grown over the years and various scenarios for future growth.

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Living with Cancer, Elmira, NY 2000 

Partners:

Star-Gazette
WETM-TV (NBC)
WSKG-FM, WSKG-TV

A year-long project looked at the impact of the region’s higher-than-average cancer rate and the steps citizens can take to prevent the disease. Monthly installments in the paper, each focusing on a different aspect of the disease, were complemented by radio and television news segments and special TV programs as well as interactive online quizzes and links to other helpful sites.

Reporting was informed both by a poll of 405 Chemung County residents that showed 60 percent had cancer in their family and by an advisory group of 12 “core sources,” including two cancer patients, an oncologist, a nurse, a social worker, a state legislator and others. They suggested and helped frame stories for the series.

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Aging Matters, Savannah, GA 1999

Partners:

The Savannah Morning News

The paper published an 11-part series on the issues faced by the region’s growing elderly population, beginning in September of 1999 and continuing through the summer of 2000. The coverage became a prime example of unraveling a community’s “master narrative.”

A Pew-supported survey of 740 Savannah-area residents helped frame the topics for “Aging Matters,” along with a series of small focus groups, each with about eight participants. The series explored how and why people age, health and long-term care, legal issues that arise as people age, the political impact of a growing senior population and the financial impact of aging.

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Care & Consequences, Binghamton, NY 1999

Partners:

Press & Sun-Bulletin
WSKG Public Broadcasting

The Pew Center supported a series of public forums, newspaper stories and radio and television broadcasts, which began in May 1998 and ran periodically through 1999, to educate the aging population in and around Binghamton, NY, on issues related to the end of life. The partners also launched a Web site, www.careproject.net, dedicated to helping people plan in advance – rather than at a time of crisis – for the ethical, financial, legal, spiritual and medical decisions associated with dying. The Web site received about 1,330 hits per month in 1999.

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Millenium Leadership Project, WA 1999 

Partners:

The Front Porch Forum
The Seattle Times
KUOW-FM

The partners sought input from some 40 Seattle area citizens for a project exploring local leadership and what the consensus-loving region seeks in those who lead its public institutions. The partners hosted informal discussions with one group of people who head up leadership development programs and a second group of recognized leaders from Seattle’s communities of color. They also held two focus groups with residents to explore the topic. 

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Commuter Chronicles, San Francisco, CA 1996

Partners:

San Francisco Chronicle
KQED-FM (NPR)
KRON-TV (NBC)

The partners in the two-year-old “Voice of the Voter” project decided to join forces for a non-electoral effort in 1996 and took on the issue of traffic congestion in “Unlock the Gridlock.” Some 1,500 people participated in five public forums held between May 1996 and April 1997, exploring the various factors in the Bay Area’s choking traffic jams. The forums gave citizens the chance to question elected officials and transportation executives about the lack of coordination in mass transit and search for solutions. Citizens could also ask questions through clip-and-send coupons in the Chronicle. Coverage also included live broadcasts on KQED and stories on KRON. 

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PBS Livelyhood 1998 

Partners:

The Working Group
KQED-TV
Public Radio’s “Marketplace”

The critically acclaimed “Livelyhood” project, a four-part, public television series on the changing nature of work in the United States, used a national poll, town hall-style discussions, the Internet and a specially devised “tool kit” to encourage working Americans to confront and discuss emerging challenges and issues in the workplace. The Pew Center helped to support some of that outreach.

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Across Generations: What We Owe Each Other, St. Paul, MN 1996

Partners:

St. Paul Pioneer Press
KARE-TV (NBC)
Wilder Research Center

Following up on the success of its “Safer Cities” project, the paper focused on intergenerational conflict with the eight-week, 14-part series “Across Generations: What Do We Owe Each Other?” First, a poll of 1,528 adults in the Twin Cities area showed some of the differences between people of different generations – young people, for example, were less likely to have a religious preference. Then a team of reporters explored the topic through “immersion reporting” – spending long periods of time with interview subjects in places such as nursing homes or day-care centers to create more trust and avoid superficial, sound-bite quotes.

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