Civic Journalism: Six Case Studies
CHARLOTTE, N.C.
"Taking Back our Neighborhoods"

Responses quickly rolled in. Charlotte Mayor Richard Vinroot pledged a recreation center for Seversville. Dozens of callers offered their help; some of the volunteers and their promises were highlighted in a Monday follow-up, accompanied by another list of items or services still needed.

The Monday reports were an integral part of the series. From the start, the Observer team wanted to spotlight neighborhoods where solutions already were underway. They decided to pair each troubled neighborhood with a nearby progressive neighborhood, which is profiled on the Monday after media-blitz Sunday. The second-day package also started on Page One, but was produced on a slightly smaller scale, with fewer inside pages.

Genesis Park was paired with Seversville. It was a community that had pushed drug dealers out and reduced crime more than 50 percent in five years. Reporter Gary L. Wright showed what strong-willed residents, attention, tax dollars, and police work had done for the community. That success story reinforced the potential and hope for Seversville.

In the months that followed, the Observer profiled several more pairs of neighborhoods. Each report has drawn significant response from the community at large.

The neighborhoods varied in racial mix, economics and size. "We didn't want to have all the neighborhoods look the same," Wright said. "We didn't want to just make a list and write about the first five." Wright spent hours driving through various neighborhoods before the real interviewing began.

Neighborhood by neighborhood, the stories in the newspaper and on the air have made a difference.

"It's the most accessible stuff we've ever done. We're giving you a way to get active in civic life," said editor Carpenter. "I've had journalists at conferences say 'You're asking people to do silly stuff.' This is a mushy side of me but I don't see anything wrong with buying kids a pair of shoes."

She recalled a newsroom visit by two criminologists at the beginning of the project. "They told an anecdote about a controversial study where one community was given money, the other brass plaques. The money was like crack cocaine; it lasted 15 minutes and then it died. The brass plaques brought pride and the neighborhood took off in a new direction."

WSOC-TV's Walker agreed. "My response to [the criticism] is if people's lives are a little better then what's wrong with it?"

In many cases, the media scrutiny of the individual neighborhoods drew action where earlier citizen complaints had received only shrugs. North Charlotte activist Michelle Tidwell, 38, and the mother of two, had repeatedly asked city officials to clear an overgrown lot where a neighbor's daughter was raped but was told nothing could be done. The victim's mother saw the North Charlotte town meeting as a chance to try again. The next day WSOC-TV examined the complaints in a news report.

Five days later the lot was cleared.

The Observer's coverage of one town meeting, about North Charlotte, on January 10, 1995, prompted an urban planner to complain in a letter to the editor that the reporter had ignored all the positive things about a neighborhood that was improving.

Michelle Tidwell disagreed. Her letter to the editor said: "Thank the Lord for the power of the press. I commend the Observer, WSOC and WPEG for the responsible way they have organized and presented some of the problems in North Charlotte. If it weren't for them, I would not at last be receiving phone calls and responses about the needs of the...community."