On the Road: Candidate Mystery Tours
By Tom Still Associate Editor Wisconsin State Journal Candidates for public office can be control freaks. Double that for their campaign managers. So when the news organizations that make up “We the People/Wisconsin” asked the state’s seven candidates for governor to join us for blindfolded day trips to meet with state citizens, we expected a […]
Civitas @ Prague.1995
By Martha Steffens Zdravko Grebo sipped freedom from a champagne flute as he grasped the hand of his wife, whom he’d not seen for four years. His wife and two sons had fled to Prague shortly after warfare ripped apart their homeland of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Grebo was shaken from his world as a law professor at […]
“…If you can’t do both, get out of the business”
Hodding Carter III Keynote Speaker Batten Award Dinner In my entire lifetime as a child of this business and as a participant in this business and as an observer and critic of this business and a “dishonest journalist,” as a politician and public official, I have never known a time in which the fear […]
Moving in on the Beat
By Richard Chin Staff Writer St. Paul Pioneer Press In my first venture into civic journalism, I woke up in the middle of the night to slap a cockroach I felt crawling on my forehead. That was the worst thing that happened. That and having the rear window in my car smashed in. Last fall, […]
Civic Journalism Comes to Buenos Aires
By John Dinges Editorial Director National Public Radio Civic journalism, at least in theory, came to Argentina in late April, and journalists and civic activists immediately linked the new ideas to the role of the press in a country that has only recently emerged from military dictatorship. More than 60 Argentines took part […]
Symposium Panelists Civic Journalism: From Citizens Up
Cheryl Carpenter Deputy Managing Editor The Charlotte Observer One of the most provocative things we did in 1992 was we actually got out of the way and we let voters talk to candidates. It’s sort of amazing what happens when you step out of the way and let a person who’s really going to […]
The Puff Adder’s Nest of Modern Journalism
James Fallows Breaking the News, How the Media Undermine American Democracy Washington Editor, The Atlantic Monthly When I first heard about the public/civic journalism movement, I was impressed with the similarity of spirit between the critique it offered and what the defense reformers had been trying to do. I believe, now, that there will be a […]
A Listening Exercise
By Karen Weintraub I was in a church last Dec. 26 when I got an interesting lesson in civic journalism. I was there to cover another installment in a long-standing story about City Council efforts to buy up an historically black neighborhood and turn it into an industrial park. The residents felt the city was […]
Helping Voters Make Informed Choices
By Kim Alexander A few years ago, a voter asked a candidate for Secretary of State in California: “So what’s your position on Bosnia?” What’s worse, the question came from a delegate to a state party convention. Patiently, the candidate explained that the California Secretary of State wasn’t involved in the Bosnia conflict […]
Civic Journalism: Doing Less Harm
By Karen Weintraub City Hall Reporter The Virginian-Pilot Part of my working definition of civic journalism is to do less harm than conventional journalism. What exactly does that mean? It means I try to frame my stories to focus on what’s real and relevant to people, on the things that will encourage citizens to […]