Civic Design: Involving Readers at Every Turn
By Pat Ford Staff Writer, Pew Center It’s shorter, it’s newsier and it seeks to involve readers at every turn of the page. The striking redesign of The Gazette in Colorado Springs is still being tweaked, but its goals and tools are part of a national trend toward what might be called “civic design.” The Gazette and other […]
Lexington Builds Common Ground on Growth
By Pat Ford Pew Center When Pete Baniak began covering development for the Lexington Herald-Leader, he never thought it would lead to a second career in pizza delivery. But that’s what happened when he tried to find the common ground in the divisive public debate over growth in “the Bluegrass,” the area around Lexington. The […]
Extra: Getting a Handle on Civic Journalism
By Pat Ford Pew Center An hour and a half till deadline and Idaho Interactive Editor Ken Sands of The Spokesman-Review is still waiting to hear from the writers of his lead story about a major development project in Coeur d’Alene. They’ve had a week to write their stories and yet, here he is, sweating bullets, […]
Stormy Weather
Just as sure as the sunshine and warm weather will bring tourists to Virginia Beach, residents of the Hampton Roads area of Virginia know, it will also bring storms, hurricanes and, by August, the threat of major floods. Situated at the junction of the Atlantic Ocean and the Chesapeake Bay, the area is extremely vulnerable […]
TV Stations Try New Political Coverage
By Laura Tutor Special Projects Editor The Anniston Star For nearly a decade, the state of city public schools has stymied the social and economic progress of Anniston and Calhoun County, Alabama. Earlier this year, when the City Council proposed that the state consider merging the two school systems, The Star wanted to know where local residents […]
Mapping Pay Off: Better Stories
By Pat Ford Pew Center The Star-Gazette’s Kati Phillips immersed herself last spring in learning how to penetrate a community – find “third places” where people gather, learn how to approach them, how to engage in meaningful conversations that yield community stories. The Elmira, N.Y., reporter felt like she had a lot of work ahead of her […]
Bringing New Immigrants into the Debate
By Pat Ford Pew Center The traditional picture of Minnesota as the land of earnest, fair-haired Norwegians and Swedes has been cemented by humorist Garrison Keillor through his nationally broadcast radio show, “A Prairie Home Companion.” So a visit to Roosevelt High School in Minneapolis might be a startling revelation. About one-third of the students […]
Mapping Key Moments in Young Lives
By Pat Ford Pew Center There was Jody, a drug-addicted, teenage runaway. There was David, a 9-year-old tormented by the effects of fetal alcohol syndrome. There were Micke and Jonn, childhood friends who grew apart as one drifted to sports and the other to jail. Reporter Jeanette White found these dramatic subjects to illustrate The Spokesman-Review project […]
Neighborhood Newsroom’s First Grads
By Pat Ford Pew Center “You go, girls!” read the headline on the feature story that dominated the front page of a recent edition of Closeup, the weekly community news insert in the Savannah Morning News. The story profiled four women in non-traditional jobs: a pipefitter, a sanitation worker, a truck driver and a flight instructor. […]
Computer Kiosks: New Feedback
By Rob Chaney The Missoulian After the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club paid a visit that sparked a near-riot in town last summer, The Missoulian had its first chance to test its latest idea for reaching out to the community – home-grown computer survey kiosks. One kisok left near the clash site collected more than 30 comments in […]