Introduction Page 2

Covering civic life requires venturing into it. When that happens, a window opens onto the communities journalists cover. Journalists will see what makes the communities tick: The underlying forces and trends in play as communities shift and evolve; people’s concerns and their struggles as they seek to make sense of things around them; the hopes and aspirations people hold for themselves and how they connect their lives to the larger world of their neighbors and the community.

Journalists also will come to see that communities are made up of different layers, and recognize which layers to tap when seeking different kinds of insights. They will hear how issues evolve as they move through those layers — how the tone changes, what language is used, what emotions swirl around, and how the issues get framed. 

The implications for reporting are real. A concern that bubbles up from the community will sound quite different from one that is discussed at a public meeting. And once a concern does get to a public meeting, journalists may need to provide a sense of connection (context, perspective, continuity) between what is being discussed “officially” and people’s original concerns.

But Isn’t This Just about Doing More Interviews?

Journalists often tell The Harwood Group that a so-called typical interview is when they call a source, ask a few questions, get the quick quote or piece of information, and then move on to the next call.

But when tapping civic spaces, a journalist’s role is to engage people in conversation. It is to learn about the community, not necessarily to find “information.” It is to discover people’s perspectives and voices, their concerns and aspirations.

The difference between doing an interview and tapping into civic conversations is the difference between knocking on a family’s front door to ask a few reporter-driven questions and seeking to sit in the family’s living room to understand their lives. 

The Wichita Experience

When we found that we knew next to nothing about the large segment of our community called West Wichita (a neighborhood the Eagle is now starting to explore), we followed the steps recommended by The Harwood Group to find and map the most active spaces. And I learned they are the area’s churches. I learned which churches were more liberal and which were more conservative, which were most active and which were less active. And, sitting in on a Sunday class of young parents, I came up with five ideas for stories we hadnt done and wouldnt have even thought about before this project.

I also learned that these disconnected folks shared more commonalities than differences with the rest of the city, cared about the whole community and wanted to help but they wanted to help in a meaningful way. And that doesn’t mean politics to them. By working to find out exactly what it does mean, were practicing a deeper, richer and more beneficial kind of journalism.

-JON ROE

EAGLE TEAM LEADER