Civic Journalism: Six Case Studies
BOSTON, MASS.
The People's Voice

The Second Focus Group Sputters

The tight production schedule meant they couldn't afford to postpone the session. Instead, they split the topics, moving ahead with the discussion on welfare, but saving jobs and the economy for another session. Coordinating the focus groups consumed a lot of Mohl's time. Getting people to actually show up once they agreed to attend posed another problem.

"We talked about should we pay them money to come, give them some incentive to come. That was sort of offensive, because we wanted to make it just regular people who were interested in the electoral process," he said.

Then there were those who volunteered.

"I got a lot of calls from people who wanted to participate but were clearly nut bags. That became an issue. Do we just put anyone into the paper even if they are fixated? There's a guy who lives in the same town I do who always called, all the time he wanted to get involved, but all he cared about was water and sewer rates. He would ask Kennedy about water and sewer rates," Mohl said. That man didn't make the list.

The informal screening process didn't always work, though. One would-be participant who came to the studio was asked to leave when the organizers realized she was a candidate for local office. Eventually, the partners were able to draw from the pool of people responding to the "get involved" boxes and messages on WBUR.

Coordinating the 30 week-day questions-and-answers boxes posed similar logistical problems. Mohl and researcher Maureen Goggin had to find questions appropriate to that week's topic, collect responses from the four gubernatorial and three senatorial candidates, and then - in what became the series' most popular feature - return to the questioner for his or her reaction to the candidates.

In keeping with the opening-day declaration, candidates were asked to stick to issues and solutions in an effort to "de-emphasize the sniping and empty rhetoric characteristic of most campaigns." Mitt Romney, one of three Republicans seeking the right to challenge Ted Kennedy, missed the point on the very first round.

Democrat Jeffrey Work, a focus group member from Jamaica Plain, wanted three to five specific ways candidates would spend $100 on the crime problem. Five candidates offered a thoughtful response, but only three actually answered the question. Gov. William F. Weld's campaign manager referred to his candidate in the third person and added a partisan touch the others avoided.

Romney not only failed to answer the question adequately, he failed the first test by sniping at Kennedy: "If your question means what would I do personally with $100 to fight crime, first I'd spend it fast before Ted Kennedy could tax it to fund some bureaucracy in Washington."