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.
The Harwood staff led the seminars. Participants included five newspapers and one television station.
The participants each selected areas to map and researched the nature and depth of their newsroom’s existing knowledge for those areas. They visited their target areas to interview a range of community leaders and citizens. The resulting maps varied widely in scope and format but each helped strengthen the newsrooms knowledge of the community.
The project proved so successful that the Pew Center published a second edition of “Tapping Civic Life,” to reflect the participants’ experiences. The center also partnered with the Harwood Group for several more seminars that eventually involved 24 news organizations across the country in civic mapping training.
Contact:
Richard C. Harwood
President
Harwood Inst. for Public Innovationbr> 4915 St. Elmo Ave, Suite 402
Bethesda, MD 20814
Phone: (301) 656-3669
Email: rharwood@theharwoodinstitute.org
Jan Schaffer
Executive Director
Pew Center for Civic Journalism
7100 Baltimore Avenue, Suite 101
College Park, MD 20740-3637
Phone: (301) 985-4020
Email: jans@pccj.org