New Hampshire Public Radio An estimated 30,000 residents, or more than 4% of the state’s registered voters, used their computers to access the radio station’s online calculator to see how proposed new tax bills would affect them. In addition, NHPR used the site as a reporting tool, monitoring a Feedback Zone and interviewing some of […]

The Chicago Reporter The newspaper revisited the 1998 slaying of 11-year-old Ryan Harris and its aftermath, finding it a critical point in police-community relations in Chicago’s crime-ridden Englewood neighborhood. Reporters reconstructed the police investigation of the crime, which led to the brief and controversial arrest of two young, neighborhood boys. (An adult was later charged […]

: The Spokesman-Review A team of reporters and editors used (and helped refine) civic journalism “mapping” tools to chart the key moments in the lives of children that can make the difference between success and failure in adulthood. Building on its “City of Second Chances” project, which told the story of Spokane’s expanding ex-felon population […]

Elmira Star-Gazette The Sabre Radio Group The Star-Gazette’s focus on teaching values to children turned out to be eerily prescient. Just weeks after its series on the subject ran, two teenagers opened fire on classmates and teachers at Columbine High School in Colorado. The event gave the Star-Gazette’s project an added intensity, prompting more area […]

The Portland Press Herald After the shootings at Columbine High School, the newspaper invited teenagers from around Maine to write about what high school life is like today. In April of 1999, 20 essays were published in the newspaper and more than 150 were posted on the “teengo” page of the Press Herald’s Web site. […]

Newschannel 8 The 24-hour, all-news station conducted a phone survey of 1,000 Washington, DC, area residents and found that traffic congestion is the most-often cited problem that impacts daily life. The survey also showed residents preferred developing more mass transit to building new roads as a way to deal with congestion but were generally pro-growth […]

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 […]

Press & Sun-Bulletin WSKG Public Broadcasting The Pew Center supported a series of public forums, newspaper stories and radio and television broadcasts, which began in May 1998 and ran periodically through 1999, to educate the aging population in and around Binghamton, NY, on issues related to the end of life. The partners also launched a […]

The Savannah Morning News The paper published an 11-part series on the issues faced by the region’s growing elderly population, beginning in September of 1999 and continuing through the summer of 2000. The coverage became a prime example of unraveling a community’s “master narrative.” A Pew-supported survey of 740 Savannah-area residents helped frame the topics […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]