KRON-TV
1999 Batten Award Winner KRON-TV, San Francisco “About Race” A non-traditional approach to the difficult subject of race relations that invited viewers into the conversation at every turn. The on-line impact was impressive, the collaboration with other media was strong. The station devoted enormous resources and broke all the rules regarding the amount of broadcast […]
1999 Batten Award Winner
1999 Batten Award Winner The Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram “The Deadliest Drug: Maine’s Addiction to Alcohol” A courageous effort to listen to the silences in the community – not just the buzz. The newspapers used computer-assisted reporting, then put human faces on the statistics as they reported the true costs to citizens of […]
Introduction
By Jan Schaffer Executive Director Pew Center for Civic Journalism In-depth, interactive journalism that served as a catalyst for further conversation in the community was the hallmark of this year’s Batten Award- winning coverage. Each of the winning news organizations courageously and thoroughly explored a sensitive subject – alcohol abuse, race relations, poverty […]
TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES
Many of civic journalism’s tools are familiar: extensive research, good writing, graphics that attract and inform. Some, however, are quite different. Journalists accustomed to battling their competitors in television may at first be uncomfortable about an alliance with the competition. But in city after city, those alliances have been powerful tools to focus public […]
MOVING THE NEEDLE
After all the planning and framing, organizing, explaining, reporting, writing, and designing, editors need to pause to see if they’ve moved any needles. Are readers responding to the initiatives? Have the news reports connected with readers or viewers? Is the public conversation leading anywhere? Has anything happened, and do they need to make any […]
GETTING STARTED
Citizens don’t all act alike. Some are willing to talk to reporters about community problems, but reluctant to do so in public groups. Others are more active; they are willing to deliberate in public or volunteer for specific tasks. Civic journalism efforts have to acknowledge these differences. Part of the “framing” process is to […]
PLANNING A PROJECT
In Kansas City, the Star enlisted 12 prominent citizens — including academics, theologians, and physicians — to choose the “core values” important to raising the community’s young people. (IMAGE 38K) Civic journalism doesn’t just happen. Involving citizens in the coverage of community issues takes planning, allocation of scarce newsroom resources and a commitment to the […]
INTRODUCTION
What makes civic journalism different from every-day good journalism? Civic journalism is everything that good journalism is — but it’s also a bit more. Civic journalism is both an attitude and a set of tools. The attitude is an affirmation that journalists have an obligation — a constitutionally protected obligation — to give readers […]
A tool
INTRODUCTION TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES TRIBUTE: 1996 Batten Award Winners MOVING THE NEEDLE PLANNING A PROJECT CONCLUSION GETTING STARTED ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The Portland Newspapers Maine Citizens’ Campaign: Making a Difference
The Portland Newspapers Maine Citizens’ Campaign: Making a Difference Paul Williams would hesitate when people asked where he lived. Sanford, Maine. A textile mill town with no textile mill. The mill had taken its jobs to non-union shops in the South 40 years earlier but the town had never managed to reinvent itself. It […]