NPR Election Project National Public Radio, known for the extraordinary depth and seriousness of its public issues coverage, made changes in its approach to political reporting to improve its coverage of the 1994 election campaign. The Washington, DC-based network worked with member stations in five cities and two statewide networks to provide high quality, issue-directed […]

The Wichita Eagle The Harwood Group This groundbreaking project created what might be called the infrastructure of civic journalism – a set of tools for uncovering the civic life of a community and tapping into it. The Eagle set out with no less a goal than improving the quality of civic life in Wichita by […]

University of Illinois League of Women Voters The partners teamed up for the Illinois Voter Project (IVP), an effort to make election coverage more issues-focused and responsive to voters rather than candidates. The university conducted a statewide opinion survey before the March 1994 primary to determine citizens’ major concerns. In June, the partners began a […]

The Daytona Beach News Journal WCEU-TV (PBS) WESH-TV (NBC) Stetson University At the Pew Center’s request, the partners returned their funding when the project became stalled because of newsroom changes.

Bangor Daily News The Margaret Chase Smith Center for Public Policy University of Maine A six-part series on leadership identified the most active behind-the-scenes community leaders in the Bangor area, what traits they held in common and the importance of their work to the life of the community. The paper began the project by compiling […]

Tallahassee Democrat WCTV6 (CBS) Florida State University Florida A&M; Universities A three-year project, “The Public Agenda” involved thousands of Tallahassee citizens in discussing and seeking solutions to a wide range of issues facing the city. Project leaders at the Democrat and WCTV used a host of tools – small group discussions, frequent polls, large forums […]

The Manhattan Mercury KQLA-FM The partners in “The Public Mind” project took a civic approach to exploring one local issue a month in depth and inviting citizens to discuss possible solutions. The series began, May 7, 1995, with an exploration of teenage binge drinking. In June, the topic was neighborhood associations; July, the student rental […]

Tallahassee Democrat WCTV6 (CBS) Florida State University Florida A&M; Universities The second year of the three-year “Public Agenda” project trained more citizens to lead and participate in small group discussions and continued polling to be sure the concerns of all members of the diverse community were surfacing. For more details, please see Year One (1994) […]

Grand Forks Herald WDAZ-TV (ABC) Northern LightsPublic Radio The partners held a series of “Community Conversations” via coffee klatches, focus groups and polls, assessing quality-of-life issues and forging a vision for the future of Grand Forks, a city of 60,000. The partners kicked the project off by driving a van to various public places around […]

WTVT-TV (Fox) Weekly Planet Alternative Paper WMNF Community Radio Tampa Chapter of National Conference The partners sought to bring civic journalism to the Tampa Bay area through a series of four jointly sponsored town hall forums and the encouragement of smaller “kitchen table” discussions in citizens’ homes. The forums were aided by “Speak Up, Tampa […]

Tallahassee Democrat WCTV6 (CBS) Florida State University Florida A&M; Universities The third year of the “Public Agenda” project ended with a hand-off to the community. Over its three-year span, the project involved more than 1,000 people in 15 discussion groups. A final poll of 353 adults in the Tallahassee area showed the project appeared to […]

Spokesman-Review One of the early innovators in developing and using civic journalism tools, the Spokesman-Review embarked on a project to foster their growth in other newsrooms. With Pew support, the paper hired an intern specifically to advance civic journalism outreach. During her year in Spokane, the intern worked with community groups, helped organize a forum […]

Wisconsin StateJournal Wisconsin Public TV Wisconsin Public Radio WISC-TV (CBS) Wood Communication Group In the spring, a forum allowed citizens to question candidates for the Wisconsin Supreme Court in “You Be the Judge,” broadcast from the high court’s chambers. Citizens got the chance to assess the performance, structure and financing of the state’s public university […]

The Charlotte Observer WSOC-TV (ABC) WPEG-AM WBTV (CBS) After the success of their major crime project, “Taking Back our Neighborhoods,” the media partners spent a year trying to incorporate the civic journalism principles they had learned into daily reporting. Applying such tools as polling, public forums, listening posts and community partnerships on a quick-turn-around time […]

Journal-Star WMBD-TV (CBS), WMBD-AM WCBU-TV (PBS), WCBU-FM (NPR) Illinois Central College Bradley University Noting a decline in civic leadership and community involvement, the partners embarked on “Leadership Challenge,” a project that met its ambitious goal of inspiring citizens to take leadership roles in the community. Designed from the beginning to become a community effort, the […]

The Weekly Planet Speak Up Tampa Bay University of South Florida Study Circles Resources Center The partners continued their quest to bring civic journalism to the Tampa Bay with the convening of a “framing” conference in the spring of 1997. About 350 citizens attended three days of town hall meetings with experts and journalists and […]

The Portland Newspapers WGME-TV Maine Public TV Maine Public Radio What started as an election year effort to get citizen voices in campaign coverage entered a new phase in 1997, as some 40 residents of Sanford, Maine, who’d been empaneled for the “Maine Citizens Campaign” refused to disband when the journalism project was over. The […]

The Seattle Times KCTS KPLU-FM KUOW-FM With all the Seattle area had going for it in the mid-90’s, there was a sense that the region could not sustain its enviable quality of life into the 21st Century. The “Front Porch Forum” partners saw this as an opportunity to expand their civic journalism effort beyond politics […]

Wisconsin StateJournal Wisconsin Public TV WISC-TV Wisconsin Public Radio Wood Communications The oldest, continuously operating civic journalism partnership tackled issues of race and culture in 1997 both with programming and outreach activities. With its “We the People500” effort, the partners diversified and broadened the base of citizens who attended their town hall meetings, coffee shop […]

The Seattle Times KCTS KPLU-FM KUOW-FM Following up on the 1997 mock trial on growth in the Puget Sound, the partners confronted longstanding assumptions about the issue with a series called, “Growth: Enough already?” The mock jury in the 1997 “Puget Sound 2020” project had startled the partners by ignoring the common wisdom about growth […]

BRONXNET The Bronx Journal BronxNet extended its efforts to link the borough’s multi-ethnic communities with the creation of several new broadcasts, utilizing its four public-access cable channels and its Web site. The broadcasts took advantage of the newly built Bronx Journalism Center at Lehman College, opened in 1999 and featuring both audio and video production […]

Internews Interactive KTCA-TV Pew Center funds supported the use of videoconferencing technology that allowed KTCA to originate broadcasts from new and unconventional locations and to connect citizens from far-flung parts of the large, rural state. The result was innovative programming with groundbreaking levels of interactivity. The first broadcast to use the new technology, in January […]

The Anniston Star The paper sought to become more interactive by creating new opportunities for reader exchanges through its online service, and it made some strides in that direction, but technical difficulties kept reporters from taking full advantage of the project’s potential. The paper gathered about 800 e-mail addresses for a “cyber-map” to complement its […]

Anniston Star The Star used civic mapping techniques to generate a database of more than 600 informal community leaders from churches, parent-teacher groups, civil rights organizations and other sources. The database could be searched by organization, community and area of interest and it was centrally located in the newsroom so any reporter could use it […]

The Harwood Institute Pew Center for Civic Journalism This series of three two-day seminars taught reporters and editors from six newsrooms how to improve their capacity to understand and interpret their communities, using the tools and techniques of civic mapping. Mapping helps journalists go beyond official and quasi-official sources of news by identifying and exploring […]

The Spokesman-Review, spokesmanreview.com Pew support allowed the paper to experiment with interactive on-line journalism tools that improved connections between reporters and readers and users. One of the most successful tools was an automated email system that was being widely used by reporters and editors within months of being created in early 2002. The system allows reporters […]

Tampa Bay Weekly Planet Using a database of more than 300 community groups and media organizations, the Weekly Planet created an email “wire service” for community news to compliment the “Public Life” newsletter launched earlier with Pew support. Grass roots organizations would send the Planet staff news about what they were doing and, about once […]

Oregon Public Broadcasting Albany Democrat-Herald The (La Grande) Observer Newport News-Times Geneforum.org Because Oregon is the only state in the nation that treats an individual’s DNA as private property, its genetic privacy law is frequently under discussion and review. The project increased public knowledge of this unique law and created opportunities for public input into […]

(Richmond) Palladium-Item Dayton Daily News Earlham College The partners developed strategies to make wire stories – the main source of national and international news for most small papers – more engaging and relevant to readers. Earlham professor Cheryl Gibbs and her students created special pages of international news for the Palladium-Item, using wire stories and […]

MaineToday.com The online service, the portal for the Portland Press Herald, the Morning Sentinel, the Kennebec Journal and WMTW Broadcasting, built and customized an innovative software system that allows community groups to generate content. MaineToday originally received funding to use existing KOZ software to improve opportunities for citizens to contribute news, responses and questions to […]

Missoulian Using modest Pew funding, Missoulian reporter Rob Chaney refitted three government surplus computers to become portable polling kiosks, suitable for gathering instant reaction to news events or for determining which issues voters are most interested in. Software installed in the computers allowed Chaney to program in survey questions on any topic and choose the […]

Lincoln Journal Star Nebraska Public Television KMTV (CBS) The partners launched a project on the ethical questions surrounding research at the University of Nebraska Medical Center after the surprise disclosure that the facility was using fetal tissue in its labs. A statewide poll of 323 adults found most generally supported the kinds of research the […]

San Antonio’s Spanish-language television station made history in May 2001 by integrating viewers into its newscasts through Web cameras in their homes. The feature, “Teledirecto TV,” was incorporated into regular newscasts at 5 p.m. and 10 p.m. to add the voice of ordinary citizens to those of experts and politicians on stories that impact the […]