Civic Journalism Is… True Stories from America’s Newsrooms
Civic Journalism Is…
About bringing in all the players.
Michele McLellan
Public Editor
The Oregonian, Portland, OR
Civic journalism can be an important ingredient in developing and improving our credibility. You get journalistic credibility by consistently demonstrating that you have expertise in the topics you’re covering. And you can’t have expertise unless you understand a variety of perspectives on issues and events.
That means not defining an issue only in the way it’s being debated at City Hall but understanding how it looks to a neighborhood, to the business community, to communities of color.
One thing we spent a lot of time on at The Oregonian was making our political coverage better. We were accused of bias. We felt we were fair and balanced. But people were saying, “You’re always reporting on how the money should be spent but not on what it means to me as a taxpayer.” That looked like bias to people and, if you’re talking about bias as incomplete information, they were right.
So we created a tax beat. Now we have someone who spends a lot of time looking at the impact of tax proposals and bringing depth to reporting the issue. We have brought to the newsroom the idea that taxpayers, even if they’re not directly lobbying the legislature or city council, are still players in this debate.