Civic Mapping, Anniston, AL 1999

Partners:

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 to find community sources for a story.

The first big pay-off came March 2, 1999, the day the Alabama Legislature began its annual session. Instead of the usual lawmakers and lobbyists, the front page featured ideas gathered from a forum where 12 of these informal leaders met with all five members of the area's legislative delegation and raised issues they wanted addressed by the lawmakers.

Similar issues forums continued to be a major use of the civic map. The Star would convene discussion groups of one to two dozen informal opinion leaders on a given topic and use the ideas they generated to guide coverage of that topic.

The database proved useful in a number of other ways as well. The paper used the civic map to generate a series of savvy, in-depth community profiles. It generated sources for local comment on major national events. And it provided sources of material for The Star's Community Page, launched in 1999.

Contact:

Chris Waddle
Executive Editor
The Anniston Star
P.O. Box 189
Anniston, AL 36202-0189
Phone: (256) 235-9208
Email: cwaddle@annistonstar.com

Cyber Mapping, Anniston, AL 2000

Partners:

The Anniston Star

The paper sought to become more interactive by creating new opportunities for reader exchanges through its online service, and it made some strides in that direction, but technical difficulties kept reporters from taking full advantage of the project's potential.

The paper gathered about 800 e-mail addresses for a "cyber-map" to complement its civic map of community sources. However, the database has not been used as a reporting tool. Online editor Geni Certain explained the information was centralized on one newsroom computer so reporters did not have easy access to it and never got into the habit of using it.

The paper has continued to work on creating the online discussion groups and forums it hoped for. Working with the three other newspapers owned by its parent company, Consolidated Publishing, it has mounted an online message board for discussions about news events. Certain said regular users of the board reflect a "great sense of community on that board," referring to themselves as "we" when discussing the views expressed on the board.

Contact:

Chris Waddle
Executive Editor
The Anniston Star
P.O. Box 189
Anniston, AL 36202-0189
Phone: (256) 235-9208
Email: cwaddle@annistonstar.com