California Voter Foundation In the fall of 1998, the California Voter Foundation (CVF) produced the state’s first online database of campaign contributions received by candidates for state office and by ballot measure campaigns. CVF also produced its first annual Online Voter Guide, which received 50,000 visits and 450,000 page views over a six-week period around […]

KTVU-TV (Fox), KTVU.com SFGate.com, San Francisco Chronicle The partners received funding for a project about the hidden costs of the affluence that accompanied the Bay Area’s high-tech boom only to have the boom implode before the project ever got started. The result was a series charting and explaining the region’s master narrative as it was happening. “After […]

San Jose Mercury News KNTV (ABC) KPIX-TV (CBS) KIVE and KARA Radio Santa Clara Public Libraries Solid investigative journalism documented the problem of special-interest money corrupting the California State Assembly,but the Mercury News turned to civic journalism to ensure that its investigation had impact. At the end of its hard-hitting “Legislature for Sale” project, the […]

San Jose Mercury News KNTV (ABC) KPIX-TV (CBS) KIVE and KARA Radio Santa Clara Public Libraries “Common Ground” was an editorial page project designed to encourage public discussion on controversial topics and create public spaces where those discussions could occur. On its editorial and commentary pages, the Mercury News editorial board would publish lists of […]

Long Beach Press-Telegram Cablevision Industries, Inc. Long Beach Community Partnership Leadership Long Beach First, 25 reporters and columnists each hosted three focus group of about 10 people each. They asked open-ended questions about what issues most concerned people, what solutions they’d propose and how government and other institutions could help. From the approximately 750 people participating […]

Pacific News Service/New California Media Pacific News Service seized the 2000 presidential and local California elections to demonstrate the growing political clout of ethnic voters and, in the process, created new outlets for diverse voices in the mainstream media. Pooling the resources of 100 ethnic newspapers and broadcast stations in the Bay Area, Pacific News […]

Pacific News Service New California Media/a> KALW-FM San Francisco Chronicle The partnership gave wider circulation, through the Chronicle’s Sunday edition and through KALW programs, to the diverse ethnic and youth voices gathered by two of the Pacific News Service’s major projects: New California Media and YO! Youth Outlook. The New California Media (NCM) project distilled […]

San Francisco Examiner Maynard Institute for Journalism After months of ground level reporting, the paper published the first story in the series on April 26, 1998. It was a 175-inch, front page centerpiece that jumped into four inside pages. That first installment also launched a feature called “First Person” that gave people a chance to […]

UC Berekley Journalism School The Oakland Post This project not only provided hands-on training in civic journalism, but it also improved coverage of a community usually overlooked by mainstream media. Eight graduate journalism students, enrolled in Berkeley’s “Covering a Community” course in the spring 1999 semester, produced five editions of a supplement to the black-owned […]

The Orange County Register, OCRegister.com Excelsior Myoc.com Reporters developed a deep understanding of the Latino population in the Santa Ana readership area with a community mapping project that included a phone survey, an academic cultural study and a dynamic database of sources structured to stay useful even as reporters move on and off the beat. The […]

Orange County Register Riverside Press Enterprise KCET-TV (PBS) KCRW-FM in Santa Monica KPCC-FM in Pasadena Orange County News Channel The partners, who’d been working together since the 1996 “Voice of the Voter” project, called their third joint effort “The Election Connection” to emphasize the goal of helping voters feel connectedto the electoral process. The project […]

San Francisco Chronicle KQED-FM (NPR) KRON-TV (NBC) The partners in the two-year-old “Voice of the Voter” project decided to join forces for a non-electoral effort in 1996 and took on the issue of traffic congestion in “Unlock the Gridlock.” Some 1,500 people participated in five public forums held between May 1996 and April 1997, exploring […]

The Working Group KQED-TV Public Radio’s “Marketplace” The critically acclaimed “Livelyhood” project, a four-part, public television series on the changing nature of work in the United States, used a national poll, town hall-style discussions, the Internet and a specially devised “tool kit” to encourage working Americans to confront and discuss emerging challenges and issues in […]