Civic Catalyst: Winter 1999

A View From the Civic Journalism Trenches
Kate Parry, senior editor of the St. Paul Pioneer Press, writes of her "fascinating decade of experimentation" with civic journalism as it has evolved to become a valuable everyday tool for reporters, photographers and editors.

Lessons Learned: Sailing Uncharted Free-Time Waters
What happened when candidates got free air time? Wisconsin Public Television Senior producer Andy Moore does a post mortem on a pioneer experiment.

Linking Community Groups Via the Web
New technology is giving journalists a unique opportunity to reach and empower citizens while positioning their organizations as future hubs of the local cyberworld. Author Pat Ford looks at the potential of community publishing.

Reaching New Readers at the L.A. Times
The LA Times has a problem and is using civic journalism to help solve it. Excerpts from the remarks of Mark Willes, Publisher and CEO of Times Mirror Co, to an Oct 15, 1998, meeting of journalists sponsored by the Pew Center and The Atlantic Monthly magazine in New York City.

Pew Center's New Projects
With the Pew center's support, 15 new civic journalism initiatives are underway in a dozen states where journalists are testing new methods of reporting local issues; looking for better ways to broaden their range of sources; and using cyberspace and two-way TV to increase citizen involvement.

Learn How to Tap into Your Community
Do you worry that important voices, places and issues are missing from your news coverage? Get a blueprint for rediscovering your community at the pew Center's Harwood Civic Mapping seminars.

Don't Stop There!
This new book from the Pew Center for Civic Journalism chronicles how five news organiztions used civic journalism to highlight serious community problems and then helped their readers try to solve them.

Call for Entries
There's still time. But the deadline is approaching for the 1999 James K. Batten Award for Excellence in Civic Journalism.