By Jan Schaffer
Executive Director
Pew Center for Civic JournalismThe Wisemen Club, Harvard Club, New York City, November 20, 1997 – I’m curious: How many of you have been written about personally, or had the companies you represent written about in the newspaper? How many of you thought the story was absolutely accurate — not only in facts, but in innuendo or spin? How many of you felt the journalism was sloppy? How many of you felt you had journalism done to you?
Well, increasingly the public is not too happy with journalists. In recent surveys by a sister outfit, the Pew Research Center, the public said the press was inaccurate 56 percent of the time — that’s up from only 34 percent in 1985. They also said the news media were biased, emphasized bad news too much, blended fact with opinion too much and were too sensational.
We all know that circulation of the nation’s leading newspapers, until very recently, has been on a steady downward trend. The numbers are even worse for television: When people were asked in 1996 if they regularly watch nightly network news, only 42 percent said “yes” — a freefall from the 60 percent who said they watched regularly only three years earlier, in 1993.
We’ve got Steve Brill of Court TV fame launching a new magazine that will take lousy journalists to task, just as American Lawyer did to lawyers.
And in city after city around the country, civic groups, city leaders, crime victims and others are really angry at their local media.
Well, into this stew, about five years ago, the idea of civic journalism began bubbling up. And it bubbled up independently in a lot of different places. In election projects in Wichita and Charlotte, from editors repulsed at the course of campaign coverage. In the mind of an NYU professor. At the Pew Center for Civic Journalism. And, really, among lots of journalists who weren’t feeling very good about their profession.
The Pew Center was born out of the venture fund at the Pew Charitable Trusts. It was the first of what are now three journalism projects funded by the Trusts. There’s also the Pew Research Center, a polling outfit, and the Project for Excellence in Journalism.
The idea behind the Center is this: Maybe some of the ways journalism is being practiced these days are partly — not totally — responsible for the U.S. turning into a nation of civic couch potatoes. For the cynicism. For a declining can-do spirit. For a sort of learned helplessness.
The theory behind this grand experiment — and it is an experiment — is: If journalists did their jobs differently, would citizens do their jobs differently?
So, civic journalism dared to question the mission of journalists. It dared to suggest an expansion of that mission. Was the purpose of journalism only to fan the flames of controversy by focusing on conflict or opponents facing off? Was it to polarize issues in a way that left no platform for the middle ground?Or was it to focus only on experts, or elected officials or front runners?
Or do journalists share a larger responsibility — indeed, the one that is protected by the First Amendment — which is to give citizens the news and information they need to do their jobs in a democratic society?
So, editors around the country began experimenting with some new ways of coverage. A lot of it used the best journalistic tools but also took advantage of new communications technologies — e-mail, voice mail, fax, the Internet — to make reporting much more interactive, to create listening posts for reporters that were two-way conversations, instead of the standard one-way downloading of information on readers and viewers.
I think that what’s going on is really very exciting and very creative. Here are some of the questions that are framing those experiments:
- What would happen if . . .
You treated citizens as participants in a self-governing society instead of as passive bystanders with no stake in issues. The way some issues are framed, it’s as if only the Democrats or the Republicans have a stake — win-lose — in the outcome.
“We tend to cover government as though it were an oligarchy, not a democracy where citizens have the power… If journalists saw citizens as active players, we would cover them just as we cover other power brokers, lobbyists, lawmakers, pollsters, pundits, experts,” says Jeannine Guttman, editor of thePortland, Me., Newspapers.
Part of civic journalism is holding citizens just as accountable as we hold elected officials.
- What would happen if . . .
We redefined news so that it’s more than just conflict, or crises. Can we cover consensus or collaboration? Do journalists know how?
Most journalists who cover a meeting where people are talking and working on solutions would go back to their editor and say: “There’s no story, people just talked.” But actually, a lot is happening in these conversations, but we don’t have story models to write about them.
A quick example. In Tallahassee, a couple of years ago, voters shot down a new bond issue for schools after a very vitriolic campaign. Afterwards the paper went back to the school district and said: “What now? We still have all the problems.” And the school administrators shrugged their shoulders and said, “Well, nothing, our hands are tied.” So the paper went back to the two primary proponents and two opponents and instead of writing about where they disagreed, they flipped the frame and wrote about where they agreed. And, there was a lot more consensus than was ever aired before the election. The story launched some new conversations in the community.
- What would happen if . . .
We reframed our election coverage so that instead of it being a horse race, with a winner and loser, it was a hiring decision, in which voters get to decide who they want to hire to run for office, and the candidates apply for the job, get interviewed, and are asked to address issues that citizens say they care deeply about (instead of the issues that drive wedge constituencies.?
God forbid, said Michael Kelly, then writing for The New Yorker. Elections are supposed to be catfights, how dare journalists tweak that frame?
But around the country, paper after paper, in the past several election cycles — and even The New York Times — have focused much more on issues. And citizens are saying they like it. The Charlotte Observersaid it had fewer cancellations from readers perceiving bias towards one side or the other after the 1996 Helms-Gantt race than any other election.
- What would happen if . . .
Journalists redefined balance? We all know journalists strive for “balanced” coverage but I would suggest that most of what we get is bi-polar. The very pros and the very cons. But those people who are conflicted about the issues, who are in the middle, never get a voice in our stories. I would suggest to you that balance is in the middle, not at the extremes. Can we cover ambivalence without making it boring? Great novelists do it all the time.
Consider abortion coverage. The vast majority of people are not really “For” or “Against”. They see merits in both sides of the issue and they just hope they’ll never have to personally deal with it.
- What would happen if . . .
We strayed from the conventional wisdom on a story, and actually reported something fresh?
Well, that’s what has started to happen all over the country as journalists have begun listening to ordinary people as actively as they listen to elites.
Many of you may have heard about what happened in Asbury Park. The Press decided to do a civic journalism project on what ails that sorry seashore community. But instead of focusing on the failed waterfront developments, they went door to door asking residents what they thought. And people started to talk about how their neighbors run-down house had just fetched $200,000. The paper uncovered an amazing mortgage fraud that involved 200 flipped properties, greedy lenders, victimized citizens, corrupt appraisers. They expect 100 indictments. It was the result of listening differently. (And by the way the Press’ circulation went up nearly 7,000 every day the story ran.)
When they listen differently, journalists also hear other meanings behind the icons and their coverage begins to reflect those nuances. An example: every election the same old buzz words crop up. Jobs, crime, education. But when you talk to ordinary people about jobs it means different things, often different from how politicians use the words. “Jobs in the city of Portland means a better job; “jobs” up on Maine’s Canadian border means any job. If our coverage captured those nuances, would it resonate better with readers?
- Finally, what would happen if . . .
Without abandoning our watchdog role– nobody wants that to go away — we also took on a guide-dog role. If we showed people how they could get involved, or make a difference. Papers are helping to create all kinds of civic spaces where people can actually do something. And editors are stunned at the response. They know they are helping their communities help themselves. And getting some good journalism out of the process.
- In Charlotte, The Observer profiled 10 high crime neighborhoods by first asking residents what was wrong and what they needed. They published those “needs” lists with an 800 number, and 1,000 citizens of Charlotte raised their hands and said, I could do that. I can sew band uniforms, help drive, rehab a house whatever. And the neighborhoods cleaned themselves up and crime dropped.
- In Seattle, the Times offered to pay for pizza for anyone willing to host a house party where citizens could meet and discuss the growth that was strangling the region: 230 parties were held and reported back to the paper; 100 of those citizens were invited to be part of a mock jury that heard prosecutors and defense attorneys questioning expert witnesses on growth. They found the government and themselves overwhelmingly guilty for failing to plan adequately. And they were “sentenced’ to come back the next Saturday to come up with some ideas. All but 3 people returned.
- In Binghamton, NY, 200 citizens signed up for 10 action teams to come up with ideas to counter tremendous defense industry downsizing.
The stories go on and on. Citizens have a tremendous appetite for this kind of engagement and new ways of getting information. Unfortunately, they have a bigger appetite for it than some journalists.,
Well, clearly this is all very sinister. It’s advocacy, boosterism, pandering, say the critics. We say civic journalism has had journalism done to it. These are not easy ideas, they involve a lot of nuances. And it’s easier for reporters to write about it using the old, “whos for it” and “whos against it” frame.
But there is a growing mass of data that shows civic journalism efforts are really having impact.
In Norfolk, The Virginian Pilot is experimenting with some new dedicated civic journalism pages, three times a week, and they are measuring reader feedback quarterly. Three months after the launch, reader satisfaction of their education coverage increased 50 percent.
In Madison, Wisconsin, the “We the People” partnership aired the first of a series of issues programs in a year-long sesquicentennial civic journalism effort. The topic was “Family.” It aired Tuesday, Oct. 21, prime time, 7-8 p.m., on CBS and on public television. It was the same night as Game 3 of the World Series. “Family” snared a 7 rating and a 15 share. Baseball got a 6 rating and a 13 share. (Top-rated were ABC’s “Soul Man” and “Over the Top” at 8 and a 17 share.
Academic researchers have shown definitively that civic journalism efforts have measurably improved positive attitudes towards the media partners. They also have proven that citizen knowledge has actually increased after reading civic coverage.
For you New Yorkers, a curious thing happened in your recent referendum on a constitutional convention. Of course, it was overwhelmingly defeated everywhere –except in Monroe County, home of the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, which had been doing an aggressive civic journalism project on prospects for a convention. There the vote was a virtual dead-heat.
The teachers union, we are told, had mounted an aggressive statewide campaign against the constitutional convention — because the current constitution is good for teacher tenure. But they didn’t run any of their ads in the Rochester area. “Readers there knew too much,” opponents said.
Finally, you can actually see newsroom creativity. I’ve included in your packet several stories that exemplify the new writing experiments — we’re seeking more first and second person articles, more essays. Charlotte even covered its City Council races with first-person curtain raisers — a sample is in your packet.
I’ve thrown a lot of information at you. I’ll sum up by saying that at best, I think, civic journalism is working at creating the journalism of the future – in all its forms, traditional, on-line, in-person.
And at its worst, I think, it has initiated a stepped-up conversation and a lot of introspection in the profession, over the role of journalists and the way we practice our craft, our credibility. And these conversations are now being formally conducted by the Freedom Forum, the American Society of Newspaper Editors, the Pew Trusts. So stay tuned.