Marion’s Moment of Truth
By Dana Clark Felty Pew Center Page one of the Marion, IN Chronicle-Tribune on New Year’s day featured the standard photo: the first baby of the millennium. In this case, twins had been born and the photo showed a happy mother and father with the newborns and a stash of gifts. Marion appeared to be twice […]
Case Study: Savannah Schools
By Eileen Putman Special to the Pew Center Like many southern cities, Savannah has seen white residents flee city schools for the suburbs. A strong parochial school base also skims students from public schools, where test scores are well below par. And despite Savannah’s growth rate, several businesses have abandoned the city because public schools […]
Scoring High Marks on Schools
By Eileen Putman Special to the Pew Center Standardized test scores rise in Baltimore. A testing gap between white and minority students narrows in Madison, WI. A much-needed school bond, given no chance of passage, wins by a landslide in Wichita. Did civic journalism in those three cities cause such dramatic changes? It’s a tantalizing […]
Cutting-Edge Links for 10 Town Halls
VBricks, an innovative new technology that turns cameras and microphones into computers, transformed 10 West Virginia sites into one big town meeting last September, enabling an unprecedented statewide discussion of the state’s future without coal. Teaming up with The Herald-Dispatch, West Virginia Public Broadcasting (WVPB) installed the technology, which provided the benefits of satellite hook-ups at […]
Reid Ashe Calls for Raising Value of News
By Reid Ashe Publisher The Tampa Tribune It’s a special privilege to speak at the presentation of the Batten Awards. Jim Batten meant a lot to me, as he did to all of us who had the privilege of working for him. Jim was my boss during an especially exciting time in my life, the […]
Batten Award Winners: How They Did It
“West Virginia After Coal” The Herald-Dispatch, Huntington, West Virginia Public Broadcasting Len LaCara, Managing Editor, The Herald-Dispatch: The whole point of what we set out to do is to get people talking and to get a dialogue going on what West Virginia needs to do to prepare for a future whether there’s coal there or […]
How to Reach Diverse Communities
By Don Heider Assistant Professor of Journalism University of Texas-Austin Author of “White News, Why Local News Programs Don’t Cover People of Color” The latest census figures make it clear: The demographics of the country are changing. At the same time, local television news is losing viewers, and newspapers are struggling to hold onto readers. […]
Mapping Reflects Real Life, Real People
By Kamrhan Farwell Assistant Metro Editor The Press-Enterprise, Riverside, CA I call it fast-food journalism. Make two calls, snag an expert, skim the best from the Internet and grab a token “real person” to make it seem like home cooking. Bing, bang, bong. And that burger’s done, just like the 30 million before it. We […]
West Virginia Partners Split Top Batten Award Two Runners-Up Spark Civic Turnarounds
The Huntington Herald-Dispatch and West Virginia Public Broadcasting swept the 2001 Batten Awards for Excellence in Civic Journalism for ambitious and interactive coverage of the single biggest issue in the state – its future without coal – and the creation of a groundbreaking database of how coal severance taxes are used. Their “West Virginia After Coal” partnership […]
Tech Tools Strengthen Civic Reporting
llectors of feedback and even eyewitness accounts of police skirmishes. Visioning-Community Mapping Programs. Clickable maps are interactive online exercises that give community residents a way to have direct input on public decisions. “Waterfront Renaissance” Web maps provided by The Herald’s HeraldNet.com allowed Everett, WA, residents to click on icons, drag them to a location and “vote” graphically for their […]