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.
Still, the Daily World reported a number of developments showing the project had an impact. According to project editor Matt Hufman, community activists, fishermen and Native American tribes worked together to figure out how to split a dwindling salmon run and one local town changed its government from a three-person commission to a seven-member council in response to charges of aloofness and inaccessibility.
Contact:
Matt Hufman (formerly at the Daily World)
Metro Editor
Las Vegas Sun
PO Box 98970
Las Vegas, NV 89193-8970
TEL: (702) 385-3111
FAX: (702) 383-7264
EMAIL: matt@lasvegassun.com
Boom Town Faces its Future, Myrtle Beach, SC 1997
Partners:
The Sun News
Cox Broadcasting
After the results of an informal Sun News survey showed serious community concern about rapid growth, the paper launched an 11-month project, “Living in a Boom Town.” The paper had asked readers to respond to six open-ended questions about the Myrtle Beach area. Some 300 responses showed five main areas of concern: traffic, growth, elected officials, schools and culture. A five part series exploring each of these topics began April 27, 1997. Each package included a “primer,” giving background on the issue, comments from readers and additional resources for more information. The paper also set up a phone line for more reader comments and started a discussion forum on growth issues on its Web site. It followed people’s concerns through ongoing coverage of one neighborhood, Socastee, which was wrestling with all of the issues involved.
In November, the paper sponsored five focus groups, each with members who represented different segments of the community: newcomers, retirees, parents, young adults and Socastee residents. Despite the differences in the groups’ make-up, the paper found broad agreement on growth issues. The focus groups guided a second series of stories, published in February and March of 1998. For instance, the focus groups showed strong support for impact fees on developers, and the paper wrote about how impact fees worked in other areas. The focus groups voiced disillusionment with elected officials, and the paper reported on what elected positions were open and how to file to run for public office.
The project culminated in a “Boom Town Civic Fair,” March 28, 1998, which attracted about 400 people. The paper also began two weekly features: an informational graphic that showed the goals of a particular government body were and the status of work toward the goal and a column, “Speaking Up/Boom Town Forum,” for reader comments.
Contacts:
Susan C. Deans (Former Editor, The Sun News)
Asst Managing Editor/Weekends
Denver Rocky Mountain News
400 West Colfax Avenue
Denver, CO 80204
TEL: (303) 892-2386
FAX: (303) 892-2841
EMAIL: deanss@denver-rmn.com
John X. Miller (Former Managing Editor, The Sun News)
Public Editor
Detroit Free Press
600 West Fort Street
Detroit, MI 48226-3138
TEL: (313) 222-6803
FAX: (313) 222-5981
EMAIL: miller@freepress.com
We the People/Wisconsin, Madison, WI 1997
Partners:
Wisconsin StateJournal
Wisconsin Public TV
WISC-TV
Wisconsin Public Radio
Wood Communications
The oldest, continuously operating civic journalism partnership tackled issues of race and culture in 1997 both with programming and outreach activities. With its “We the People500” effort, the partners diversified and broadened the base of citizens who attended their town hall meetings, coffee shop conversations and other listening sessions. Those sessions had generally reflected Wisconsin’s overwhelmingly white population so the partnership reached out to news organizations in seven cities with larger minority populations to join in sponsoring some events. The new partners included print and broadcast media in Milwaukee, La Crosse, Eau Claire, Wausau, Hayward, Superior and Beloit. The partners also held focus groups to learn how minority citizens get their news and how “We the People” could be more involved in reaching those citizens and reconnecting them with public life.
The outreach helped engage participants for a forum on race and culture on April 3, 1998, as part of “We the People’s” project “150 Years and Counting.” Some 75 participants took part in a frank and emotional conversation in which many white members of the audience pledged to fight racism, while many non-white participants said whites couldn’t possibly understand the difficulties they face. The statewide broadcast reached approximately 50,000 people and generated several responses to the “Your Forum” section of the Wisconsin State Journal, as well as editorials and stories in other media partners.
The forum was one of five in a year-long series tied to the 150th anniversary of Wisconsin’s statehood. Other subjects included the family, land use and working. A “Citizens’ Charter” was developed from suggestions and values discussed by participants in the first four forums and then presented to candidates for governor and for U.S. Senate at a final forum broadcast live on Oct. 16, 1998.
Contacts:
Thomas W. Still
President
Wisconsin Technology Council
PO Box 71, 615 E. Washington Ave.
Madison, WI 53701-0071
TEL: (608) 442-7557
FAX: (608) 256-0333
EMAIL: tstill@wisctec.com
Tom Bier
General Manager
WISC-TV
7025 Raymond Rd.
Madison, WI 53719
TEL: (608) 271-5171
FAX: (608) 271-0800
EMAIL: tbier@wisctv.com
David Iverson
Executive Director
Best Practices in Journalism
2601 Mariposa St.
San Francisco, CA 94110
TEL: (415) 553-2489
EMAIL: iverson@wpt.org
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.
Reporting kicked off in the summer of 1997 with 13 reporters from the participating newsrooms attending a series of “Pizza on the Porch” parties in which 1,500 residents talked about the region’s future informally over pizza in private homes. Concerns that emerged included traffic, affordable housing and teachers’ salaries. The results were used to formulate a public opinion poll conducted in September.
Then in October, 1997, the partners empaneled a mock “jury” of 100 citizens selected randomly from the area that heard oral arguments by “prosecutors” and “defense attorneys” on regional issues. They found the region “guilty” of failing to plan well enough for the future. The judge “sentenced” them to return for a second Saturday of deliberations to come up with solutions. The sessions were covered by the paper and aired in edited form by the broadcast partners. The deliberations also yielded a report for policy makers on sustaining the region’s quality of life. That report was integrated into election coverage, with “jurors” asking candidates for King County Executive and Seattle Mayor to respond to the suggestions at separate forums.
Contacts:
David Boardman
Managing Editor
The Seattle Times Co.
PO Box 70
Seattle, WA 98111
TEL: (206) 464-2160
FAX: (206) 464-2261
EMAIL: dboardman@seattletimes.com
Marion Woyvodich
1138 North 82nd Street
Seattle, WA 98103-4405
TEL: (206) 522-5754
FAX: (206) 528-5528
EMAIL: MWoyvodich@aol.com
Eric Pryne
Staff Reporter
The Seattle Times
P.O. Box 70
Seattle, WA 98111
TEL: (206) 464-2231
FAX: (206) 464-2261
EMAIL: epryne@seattletimes.com
Ross Reynolds
Program Director/News Director
KUOW-FM
PO Box 535750
Seattle, WA 98195
Phone: (206) 543-2710
Email: rar@u.washington.edu
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.
An eight-part series informed by the survey and focus groups ran in November and December 1997. Cablevision produced a two-hour program on the initiative.
Contact:
Rich Archbold
Executive Editor
Long Beach Press-Telegram
PO Box 230
Long Beach, CA 90801-0230
TEL: (562) 499-1285
FAX: (310) 437-7892
EMAIL: rarchbold@sgvn.com
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.
The project proved to be a watershed for the Morning News, which had been in existence less than a year when the project started. The previously skeptical lead reporter attended a Pew Center training seminar when the project was launched and, as a result, spent more time in Arlington’s neighborhoods, talking to residents, rather than with public officials. Her reporting stood out in the highly competitive Dallas-Fort Worth market for its richness of sources and voices. Not only did the Arlington experiment prompt more people to get involved in government, it broke down barriers with the media, as more residents began calling the paper with story ideas, attending editor’s meetings and writing columns and letters.
Contact:
Marla Crockett
Asst. Dir., News & Public Affairs
KERA-FM (NPR)
3000 Harry Hines Road
Dallas, TX 75021
TEL: (214) 740-9349
FAX: (214) 740-9369
EMAIL: kerafm@metronet.com
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.
With Pew funds, the Portland Press Herald and Maine Sunday Telegram continued to provide facilitators and other support for the citizens group but there was much less regular coverage by both the papers and broadcast partners.
WGME produced three legacy videos on the group; one distributed to junior highs and high schools throughout Maine for use in a civic involvement curriculum, another aired on WGME and a third distributed to media around the country as a model of the citizen engagement process.
The partners teamed up again to use the citizen consultation model for covering state government with the “Beyond the Ballot” series. The partners polled 1,100 people from five different regions of Maine to determine which issues people felt were most important and how they varied from region to region.
The series began Aug. 23, 1998, with stories showing the issues of jobs, education and taxes transcended regional differences while interest in social issues such as child abuse, health care and poverty differed from region to region. Follow-up stories gave the five candidates running for governor in 1998 a chance to address the citizens’ issues.
Through the fall, separate town meetings were held in each of the five areas surveyed. Seventy-five demographically selected citizens deliberated the issues for a day and questioned gubernatorial candidates who attended the sessions. The information gathered was published in book form and distributed to key leaders throughout the state. The paper also used the book as a guide for reporting on what progress Gov. Angus King made in addressing citizen issues after his election to a second term.
Contacts:
Jeannine A. Guttman
Editor and VP
Portland Press Herald
PO Box 1460
Portland, ME 04104
TEL: (207) 791-6310
FAX: (207) 791-6931
EMAIL: jguttman@pressherald.com
Jessica Tomlinson
Online Community Organizer
MaineToday.com
50 Monument Square
Portland, ME 04101
TEL: (207) 822-4072
FAX: (207) 879-1042
EMAIL: Jessica@mainetoday.com
Maine Citizens’ Campaign Documentary Video, 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.
With Pew funds, the Portland Press Herald and Maine Sunday Telegram continued to provide facilitators and other support for the citizens group but there was much less regular coverage by both the papers and broadcast partners.
WGME produced three legacy videos on the group; one distributed to junior highs and high schools throughout Maine for use in a civic involvement curriculum, another aired on WGME and a third distributed to media around the country as a model of the citizen engagement process.
The partners teamed up again to use the citizen consultation model for covering state government with the “Beyond the Ballot” series. The partners polled 1,100 people from five different regions of Maine to determine which issues people felt were most important and how they varied from region to region.
The series began Aug. 23, 1998, with stories showing the issues of jobs, education and taxes transcended regional differences while interest in social issues such as child abuse, health care and poverty differed from region to region. Follow-up stories gave the five candidates running for governor in 1998 a chance to address the citizens’ issues.
Through the fall, separate town meetings were held in each of the five areas surveyed. Seventy-five demographically selected citizens deliberated the issues for a day and questioned gubernatorial candidates who attended the sessions. The information gathered was published in book form and distributed to key leaders throughout the state. The paper also used the book as a guide for reporting on what progress Gov. Angus King made in addressing citizen issues after his election to a second term.
Contacts:
Gary Legters
Operations Manager
WGME-TV
1335 Washington Avenue
Portland, ME 04104
Phone: (207) 797-9330
Jim O’Rourke
Acting News Director
WGME-TV
1335 Washington Avenue
Portland, ME 04104
Phone: (207) 797-9330
Lois Czerniak
Executive Producer
WGME-TV
1335 Washington Ave
Portland, ME 04130
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.
Contact:
Ben Eason
President and CEO
Creative Loafing
1310 E. 9th Avenue
Tampa, FL 33605
TEL: (813) 248-8888
FAX: (813) 248-9999
EMAIL: ben.eason@creativeloafing.com
Portland, OR 1997
Partners:
The Oregonian
Oregon Public Broadcasting
That most fundamental of civic activities, voting, was the subject of a three-part series in the Oregonian and a special call-in show on public radio. Though Oregon had one of the highest voter turn-out records in the nation, there were still nearly a million eligible Oregonians who did not vote. Through a survey of 733 people and three focus groups, reporters learned that voters and non-voters had a great deal in common and that not voting was not an indication of detachment or alienation. In fact, they found 80 percent of non-voters were active in their community, with many involved in three or more civic activities.
The survey divided respondents into three groups: frequent voters, occasional voters and non-voters. Results found that non-voters tended to be younger and less well-educated than frequent voters but all groups felt cynical about elections-that they are about choosing the lesser of two evils and that voting changes very little. All groups were put off by negative campaigning.
The findings were reported on three consecutive days beginning Oct. 26, 1997. The series included the pros and cons of ideas to curb negative campaign ads, lists of opportunities for community involvement and each part invited caller comment. Oregon Public Radio aired a call-in show just before the series ran, inviting suggestions about what needs to be addressed to get people to vote.
Contact:
Sandra Mims Rowe
Editor
The Oregonian
1320 S.W. Broadway
Portland, OR 97201
TEL: (503) 221-8400
FAX: (503) 294-4175
EMAIL: srowe@news.oregonian.com
The Voters’ Voice, New Hampshire 1997
Partners:
New Hampshire Public Radio
The Keene Sentinel
The Portsmouth Herald
UPI of New Hampshire
Inspired by the success of its election year project, “Voter’s Voice,” New Hampshire Public Radio sought citizen participation in coverage of non-election issues through a series of “Citizens Exchange” meetings in different communities, in association with local newspapers.
The network began the project in early 1997, with a series of call-in shows from its Concord studios, where citizens asked questions of the new governor, their congressmen and senators and engaged in discussions of campaign finance reform, race relations and health care issues.
NHPR then took the show on the road. The first stop was the Nashua Public Library on May 12, where about 90 citizens participated in a forum with the governor. The forum was taped and aired the next morning and again the next evening. It was also broadcast on Media One and stories ran in the Telegraph. Later forums allowed citizens to question other key elected officials about a wide range of issues.
Contact:
Mark D. Handley
President/General Manager
New Hampshire Public Radio
207 North Main Street
Concord, NH 03301-5003
TEL: (603) 226-0850
FAX: (603) 224-6052
EMAIL: mhandley@nhpr.org
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.
The package of stories was published in the April 1998 edition of The Reporter. On April 15, WBEZ-FM, Chicago’s public radio station, broadcast its story on the Wrightwood community as part of its “Chicago Matters” series. On May 17, WNUA-FM featured Wrightwood on its monthly Sunday morning public affairs show “City Voices.”
The partners wrapped up the project with a July 1 town hall meeting in Wrightwood. About 175 people attended and gave the project high marks for increasing understanding in Wrightwood.
Contact:
Laura S. Washington (former editor and publisher)
3750 Lake Shore Dr., Apt. 8-C
Chicago, IL 60613
TEL: (773) 327-4025
EMAIL: lauraswashington@aol.com
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.
The project also launched The Bronx Journal in the fall of 1997. The free tabloid was the first newspaper to cover all of the Bronx, not just a small community within the borough. Each issue featured a multilingual pull-out section presenting hard news in 10 languages including Spanish, Russian, Korean, Chinese and Japanese. The Journal continues to provide multi-lingual coverage and is used in Bronx schools.
Contacts:
Jim Carney
Executive Director
Bronxnet- Lehman College
Carman Hall Room C-4
Bronx, NY 10468-1589
TEL: (718) 960-1180
FAX: (718) 960-8354
EMAIL: jcarney@bronxnet.com
Patricio Lerzundi, Ph.D.
Director, Multi-Lingual Journalism
Lehman College
250 Bedford Park Blvd. West
Carman Hall 266
Bronx, NY 10468
TEL: (718) 960-8215
FAX: (718) 960-8218
EMAIL: lerzundi@alpha.lehman.cuny.edu
Daytona Beach, FL 1997
Partners:
The Daytona Beach News Journal
WCEU-TV (PBS)
WESH-TV (NBC)
Stetson University
At the Pew Center’s request, the partners returned their funding when the project became stalled because of newsroom changes.