Civic Journalism: Six Case Studies
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIF.
"Voice of the Voter"

Brewer ran into some resistance because the decision to participate was made at the top without input from reporters and mid-level editors. "There was a feeling in some quarters that it was carrying water for management. It got better, much better," said Brewer, who also evolved into a believer.

Adding to the problem was a labor dispute with the San Francisco News Agency that would climax in a strike nearly a year later and force the project to a premature conclusion only days before the election.

The Chronicle / KQED-FM alliance was a good start, but it wasn't enough. The project would not succeed in the sprawling Bay Area without a strong television partner. The Chronicle and KQED each had ties to television. KQED-FM shared an administrative staff and quarters in the Mission District with KQED-TV, a public television station; the Chronicle's parent company owns NBC affiliate KRON-TV.

KQED-TV didn't have the personnel or financial resources to be a partner; KRON had the resources and a much wider audience. KRON also had Belva Davis, co-host of its California This Week public affairs show.

To KRON assistant news director Jim Esser, "It was a foregone conclusion that we would do it."

Not foregone was what form that involvement would take. The first idea was to use KRON's new all-news cable outlet, BAY-TV, scheduled to debut in July. Brewer and Eisele were excited by the possibilities of television with fewer time constraints, but the cable connection never materialized.

The false start slowed down KRON's participation. Stacy Owen, a producer who would be the station's point person for the project, wasn't assigned until March, just before leaving on an extended vacation. Assigned as lead reporter was Rollin Post, the only television political analyst in the Bay Area and Belva Davis's co-host on California This Week.

KRON's newsroom managers scrambled to fit the costs of an issues poll into their budget, but as Owen explained later, "the real costs of doing the project were in human terms, not cash."

Most of the people involved met twice in early 1994, once with Miller from Poynter and again to discuss an issues poll. The group decided to focus on the race for governor instead of the U.S. Senate race, concentrate on the front-runners, and name the project "Voice of the Voter." KQED's Eisele, KRON's Owen, and the Chronicle's Brewer were assigned to handle day-to-day details.

The planners had to devise a way to ensure maximum editorial independence while producing joint programs. That meant planning their own newsroom's coverage while playing to each partner's strengths. In addition, they had to find ways to carry the momentum from late March to the June 7 primary, and then through the summer into the general election. And they had to do all of this while carrying out their usual duties.

Their strategy was to launch the project with a poll, coordinate coverage of the key issues defined by the poll, and produce a gubernatorial debate.

For polling, The Field Institute, the San Francisco polling organization that produces one of the state's leading horse-race polls, was commissioned to survey 633 Bay Area residents the first week in March. The 32-question survey started with a simple question about whether "things in the state are generally going in the right direction, or. . . are seriously off on the wrong track?" When 63 percent of the respondents chose "wrong track," it was a strong indicator that the partners were on the right track.

Crime and education topped the concerns. As pollster Mervin Field told the Chronicle, "One of the most intriguing findings of the poll was the number of respondents who combined the two issues into a concern about violence in schools."

The results provided enough copy for each partner to launch "Voice of the Voter" on March 21. The poll also provided a pool of about 300 people who said they would be willing to be contacted by a reporter.

Field turned over 100 of the questionnaires to each partner. Each set contained an equal number of respondents for the top issues. Brewer, Eisele, and Owen then sorted through the responses, exchanging sources like trading cards until each was satisfied.

Initially, the partners wanted to enter the data from the forms into a computer database they could share, but the task was too labor intensive to accomplish during the launch.