Civic Journalism Is… True Stories from America’s Newsrooms
Civic Journalism Is…
About paying attention.
John McCaa
Anchor, Host of “Metro”
WFAA-TV, Dallas
Here’s what civic journalism is NOT. It is NOT parachuting into the community as if it’s a special forces operation and getting the loudest voices and then walking away. You may touch the veneer that way but civic journalism gets underneath to the woodwork, where the community really is.
To do that, you have to show people that you care about covering the community – that you are there for more than an hour; you are there for more than a story. You have to listen to them, find out what’s inside.
We found a woman in Dallas who helps poor people with drug problems, people who otherwise couldn’t get treatment unless they got arrested first. We could have done the standard thing – called in the morning, showed up, asked her the typical questions about how many people are in the program, interviewed one of the people and left. But we spent time with her, talked to her clients and their families. We found out she had had a drug problem and she let us broadcast that. Because she trusted us.
Traditional political reporting requires a lot of time spent with politicians, getting to know them. Civic journalism is investing that time and hard work in communities that don’t normally get that kind of attention.