Building Community from Diversity, Santa Ana, CA 2002

Partners:

The Orange County Register, OCRegister.com
Excelsior
Myoc.com

Reporters developed a deep understanding of the Latino population in the Santa Ana readership area with a community mapping project that included a phone survey, an academic cultural study and a dynamic database of sources structured to stay useful even as reporters move on and off the beat.

The Register announced its mapping project to the community with fliers sent to 750 Santa Ana community groups and through messages sent to community email networks. Then a team of two project leaders, two reporters and a news assistant began the process of in-depth, face-to-face interviews with 100 community members. They also compiled detailed lists of "third places" in the community, where people go to attend to issues important to them and their families and neighborhoods.

The information was entered into a database of community resources used as a newsroom tool. It is cross-referenced by each person's interest, role in the community and particular affiliation. A hyperlink in each entry connects to the original interview with the source so that the reporter-user can understand the background and context of an issue and the source's involvement with it over time.

The information was also entered on a literal map, posted in the newsroom and updated each week with stickies showing new places the team found and lists of community assets. The team created a video so the whole staff could learn how to use these resources.

In September 2002, the paper conducted a survey in Spanish of 209 Latino homes in Santa Ana to learn more about life in the community. Meanwhile, a doctoral candidate from the California State University-Fullerton conducted a cultural study of one Santa Ana neighborhood. The paper published stories reporting the results of the survey and study but, more importantly, the project uncovered interesting stories from the community. For example, the Register covered an annual reunion of Mexican American alumni who desegregated a Santa Ana school in the 1950's after learning about it through an interview. The database also enriched the reporting of other stories. A November 2002 story about immigration done by the paper's Washington bureau benefited from Santa Ana sources found in the database.

Contact:

Dennis Foley (former Ombudsman for The Orange County Register)
County Government Reporter
The Orange County Register
PO Drawer 11626
Santa Ana, CA 92711-1626
Phone: (714) 285-2862
Email: dfoley@ocregister.com

Inside Oakland, Oakland, CA 1999

Partners:

UC Berekley Journalism School
The Oakland Post

This project not only provided hands-on training in civic journalism, but it also improved coverage of a community usually overlooked by mainstream media. Eight graduate journalism students, enrolled in Berkeley's "Covering a Community" course in the spring 1999 semester, produced five editions of a supplement to the black-owned weekly, The Oakland Post, called "Inside Oakland." They also produced ten 30-minute radio shows (also called "Inside Oakland") for KALX-FM.

Students learned a variety of skills as they were in charge of all aspects of production - writing, editing and lay out. Most importantly, says their professor, Bill Drummond, they learned how to cover a community from the inside. Each student was assigned to cover one of Oakland's City Council districts. Drummond says they penetrated those neighborhoods and became recognized by the people they were covering. The students held a focus group with 10 of the supplement's readers to discuss what issues the community wanted covered.

The supplements and radio shows featured stories about an entertainment renaissance in a formerly blighted neighborhood, the efficacy of community policing and the quality of life for elderly in the community. In the final edition, students wrote that the effort was personally rewarding.

Contact:

William J. Drummond
Professor of Journalism
University of California- Berkeley
121 North Gate Hall, #5860
Berkeley, CA 94720-5860
Phone: (510) 642-5710
Email: drummond@rosebud.berkeley.edu

The New City, San Francisco, CA 1998

Partners:

San Francisco Examiner
Maynard Institute for Journalism

After months of ground level reporting, the paper published the first story in the series on April 26, 1998. It was a 175-inch, front page centerpiece that jumped into four inside pages. That first installment also launched a feature called "First Person" that gave people a chance to talk in their own voices. Over the course of the year, the paper published 19 major stories in the series, plus sidebars and "First Persons."

Editors worked hard to gain strong staff support for the project, even among reporters who didn't work on it directly. One tool was The New City Tour, a bus tour of some of the city's more obscure neighborhoods with Max Kirkeberg, a San Francisco State University geographer. More than half the staff took the tour.

Another strategy was to have every department contribute stories to the series, leading to some of the most interesting features, such as a sports department report on cricket, hurling and other exotic, new sports being played in San Francisco's public parks. The paper had originally envisioned a one year project but felt compelled to continue the series. Stories under "The New City" sig continued to run until the paper was sold in 2000.

Contact:

Sharon Rosenhause (former Managing Editor, San Francisco Examiner)
Managing Editor
Sun-Sentinel
200 E. Las Olas Blvd
Fort Lauderdale, FL 33301
Phone: (954) 356-4602
Email: srosenhause@sun-sentinel.com

The Election Connection, Los Angeles, CA 1998

Partners:

Orange County Register
Riverside Press Enterprise
KCET-TV (PBS)
KCRW-FM in Santa Monica
KPCC-FM in Pasadena
Orange County News Channel

The partners, who'd been working together since the 1996 "Voice of the Voter" project, called their third joint effort "The Election Connection" to emphasize the goal of helping voters feel connectedto the electoral process. The project began with a poll of 600 voters to determine which issues were their highest priorities. Reporters from each news organization then spoke with respondents for stories on the poll and on each issue. Coordinated coverage among all the partners began March 16, 1998 with an overview of poll results. Issues stories ran every two weeks through the June 2 primary.

The partners also coordinated coverage of the financing behind four major initiatives on the 1998 ballot. For example, their stories revealed that most of the support for a ballot measure that would restrict the use of union dues came from conservative groups outside the state. The measure was defeated. Opposition to another initiative, allowing gambling on Native American reservations, was largely financed by Nevada casino owners. That measure passed.

In attempting to stimulate public conversation about the election, the partners brought together a panel of politically and ethnically diverse Southern Californians to watch and discuss the debate between leading gubernatorial candidates. They also sponsored a debate between candidates for state attorney general. KCBS-TV aired a weekly Election Connection talk show on Sunday mornings and KCET-TV hosted a one-hour special featuring a live studio audience on a ballot issue that would eliminate bi-lingual education in California schools.

A second poll conducted after the primary was the first to show Democrat Gray Davis with a double-digit lead over his opponent in the gubernatorial race and the first to show Republican congressional candidates in jeopardy because of a public backlash against GOP efforts to impeach President Clinton.

The partners considered their Web site, electionconnection.org, one of their major successes. The site received 158,000 visits between March and November 1998, with a spike of 50,000 visits for November.

Contacts:

Dennis Foley (former Chairman, The Election Connection, a project of the Southern California Voices of the Voter coalition)
County Government Reporter
The Orange County Register
PO Drawer 11626
Santa Ana, CA 92711-1626
Phone: (714) 285-2862
Email: dfoley@ocregister.com

Bridges to the New California and The World According to Young People, San Francisco, CA 2001

Partners:

Pacific News Service
New California Media/a>
KALW-FM
San Francisco Chronicle

The partnership gave wider circulation, through the Chronicle's Sunday edition and through KALW programs, to the diverse ethnic and youth voices gathered by two of the Pacific News Service's major projects: New California Media and YO! Youth Outlook.

The New California Media (NCM) project distilled the major stories in dozens of ethnic newspapers in the Bay Area, papers such as the Sing Tao Daily, Iran Today, India West, and Philippine News. Beginning in April 2001, the Chronicle ran articles from NCM under a sig called "Bridges to the New California."

At the same time, the paper's weekly opinion section, Insight, began running pieces by teenage correspondents from YO! Youth Outlook. The paper debuted the feature April 31, 2001, with four essays on "Rage in the Suburbs." The essays grew out of a Youth Forum the Pacific News Service sponsored earlier in April, entitled "Rage in the Suburbs: Why is it primarily white, male and aimed at schools?" The forum drew more than 125 high school students, teachers and youth advocates. Seventeen teenagers spoke on subjects ranging from "cliques in my school" to "what's exhilarating in a mall culture." The Insight editor attended the forum and commissioned essays from four of the speakers.

The forum also kicked off a series of 15-minute radio segments produced by YO! reporters for KALW, the public radio station owned by the San Francisco school district. Each week, the pieces aired as part of an hour-long show called "Up Front: Connecting Neighborhoods through the New California Media."

Contact:

Sandy Close
Executive Editor
Pacific News Service
660 Market St, Suite 210
San Francisco, CA 94104
Phone: (415) 438-4755
Email: sclose@pacificnews.org

Focus on the Ethnic Voter and Bay Area Bridges, San Francisco, CA 2000

Partners:

Pacific News Service/New California Media

Pacific News Service seized the 2000 presidential and local California elections to demonstrate the growing political clout of ethnic voters and, in the process, created new outlets for diverse voices in the mainstream media.

Pooling the resources of 100 ethnic newspapers and broadcast stations in the Bay Area, Pacific News Service started New California Media in 1996 to circulate stories among its members. Pew funding allowed the nascent service to step up activities during the election and focus on the impact of ethnic voters.

Newsmaker breakfasts, for instance, gave ethnic media reporters opportunities to meet with candidates and issues experts. A special area of NCMonline.org was dedicated to "Focus on the Ethnic Voter." NCM-TV produced a series of half-hour shows on ethnic voters, which aired on the Bay Area PBS and Asian-language stations and statewide on CSPAN.

The coverage got the attention of mainstream media and ultimately led the San Francisco Chronicle to create a Sunday section, "Bay Area Bridges," summarizing and translating stories from the area's ethnic newspapers, such as India-West, Pakistan Today, Beirut Daily Star and Nichi Bei Times. In addition, KALW-FM gave NCM a Friday slot for a weekly show, "UpFront," featuring ethnic media reporters, editors and producers.

Contact:

Sandy Close
Executive Editor
Pacific News Service
660 Market St, Suite 210
San Francisco, CA 94104
Phone: (415) 438-4755
Email: sclose@pacificnews.org

PBS' Livelyhood 1998

Partners:

The Working Group
KQED-TV
Public Radio's "Marketplace"

The critically acclaimed "Livelyhood" project, a four-part, public television series on the changing nature of work in the United States, used a national poll, town hall-style discussions, the Internet and a specially devised "tool kit" to encourage working Americans to confront and discuss emerging challenges and issues in the workplace. The Pew Center helped to support some of that outreach.

The four, one-hour television shows, which debuted on PBS, Nov. 21, 1997, covered the issues of downsizing, working families, employee ownership and community solutions to workplace problems. By design, the shows were intended not as passive entertainment but as a stimulus to discussion. To that end, the producers worked with other media to create forums for discussion. One tool used was a "Livelyhood Index," developed from the national poll results, which capsulized the findings in such statements as: "Percentage of working Americans who say they have more than one wage-earner in the household: 62." Discussion leaders, who included talk-radio hosts, could use the index as a jumping off point to get listener opinion on the issues.

After the "Working Family Values" installment, aired May 29, 1998, the producers worked with KCET-TV in Los Angeles on a town hall discussion of work issues. For the September 1998 broadcast of "Honey, We Bought the Company," which featured a Maine company, the producers partnered with the University of Southern Maine for a town hall meeting in Portland on employee-ownership issues. The producers also held a roundtable discussion in Oakland. The final installment, "Our Towns," aired Jan. 12, 1999.

Contact:

Patrice O'Neill
Executive Producer, Livelyhood; Co-Founder
The Working Group
1611 Telegraph Ave., Suite 1550
Oakland, CA 94612
Phone: (510) 268-9675
Email: poneill@theworkinggroup.org

Long Beach Beyond 2000 -- Unity in Our Community, Long Beach, CA 1997

Partners:

Long Beach Press-Telegram
Cablevision Industries, Inc.
Long Beach Community Partnership
Leadership Long Beach

First, 25 reporters and columnists each hosted three focus group of about 10 people each. They asked open-ended questions about what issues most concerned people, what solutions they'd propose and how government and other institutions could help. From the approximately 750 people participating in the 75 focus groups, six issues emerged as chief concerns: education, safety, neighborhood quality, race, immigration and youth. The findings were used to formulate a survey of 1,400 Long Beach residents, divided into four groups: 350 Asian, 350 African-American, 350 Latino and 350 white.

An eight-part series informed by the survey and focus groups ran in November and December 1997. Cablevision produced a two-hour program on the initiative.

Rich Archbold
Executive Editor
Long Beach Press-Telegram
PO Box 230
Long Beach, CA 90801-0230
TEL: (562) 499-1285
FAX: (310) 437-7892
EMAIL: rarchbold@sgvn.com

Commuter Chronicles, San Francisco, CA 1996

Partners:

San Francisco Chronicle
KQED-FM (NPR)
KRON-TV (NBC)

The partners in the two-year-old "Voice of the Voter" project decided to join forces for a non-electoral effort in 1996 and took on the issue of traffic congestion in "Unlock the Gridlock." Some 1,500 people participated in five public forums held between May 1996 and April 1997, exploring the various factors in the Bay Area's choking traffic jams. The forums gave citizens the chance to question elected officials and transportation executives about the lack of coordination in mass transit and search for solutions. Citizens could also ask questions through clip-and-send coupons in the Chronicle. Coverage also included live broadcasts on KQED and stories on KRON.

All the partners produced series throughout the year on topics related to the traffic issue, such as inadequate traffic regulation and poorly planned development that put more cars on the road. The Chronicle also conducted a poll of Bay Area residents about housing and land use and how it relates to traffic.

Results included broader public input into a new Bay Bridge design and two new pieces of state legislation. One bill gave the Metropolitan Transportation Commission authority to coordinate routes and operations, bringing a measure of organization to what had been a fragmented system. The other - passed and signed into law after a series of articles about red-light running and interviews with victims of injuries - doubled the fine for going through a red light.

Vlae Kershner
Regional Editor
San Francisco Chronicle
901 Mission St.
San Francisco, CA 94103
Phone: (415) 777-8858
Email: vk@sfgate.com

Raul Ramirez
News Director
KQED-FM
2601 Mariposa St.
San Francisco, CA 94110-1400
Phone: (415) 553-2253
Email: raul_ramirez@qm.kqed.org

Stacy Owen
News Director
KRON-TV (NBC)
1001 Van Ness Ave.
San Francisco, CA 94109
TEL: (415) 561-8008
FAX: (415) 561-8621
EMAIL: owen@kron.com

Daniel Rosenheim
News Director
KPIX-TV
855 Battery Street
San Francisco, CA 94111-1597
TEL: (415) 765-8618
FAX: (415) 765-8844
EMAIL: rosenheim@kpix.cbs.com

California Campaign Finance Database, Sacramento, CA 1998

Partners:

California Voter Foundation

In the fall of 1998, the California Voter Foundation (CVF) produced the state's first online database of campaign contributions received by candidates for state office and by ballot measure campaigns. CVF also produced its first annual Online Voter Guide, which received 50,000 visits and 450,000 page views over a six-week period around the Nov. 3, 1998 election.

The first step was to publicize the state's and the Federal Election Commission's voluntary electronic filing programs, which allowed candidates to report contributions and expenditures digitally so that interested citizens could view the information through the Internet rather than having to make a trip to the elections office to get a paper copy. Participating news organizations asked every candidate for state office, Congress and U.S. Senate if they would participate in the program. Those who filed voluntarily received a pat on the back in the Online Voters Guide. For those who did not, CVF obtained the paper filings and had student volunteers enter the information into an electronic, searchable database (developed by Compaq labs). Eight of the 16 major-party statewide candidates agreed to file electronically.

The information was incorporated into the popular Online Voters Guide with the debut of a feature called "Follow the Money." Voters and journalists could view all the contributions to a candidate almost immediately after they were disclosed and CVF published and maintained up-to-date lists of the top 10 contributors to every statewide candidate and ballot measure, providing voters with a quick, easy-to-digest overview of the biggest funders behind each campaign. In all, the site logged 100,000 visits in 1998 and over one million page views. Users wrote thank you notes such as this one: "It is each of our responsibility to be informed voters. Your site is helping ensure that I am in that category."

Contact:

Kim Alexander
President & Founder
California Voter Foundation
222D Street, Suite 6B
Davis, CA 95616
Phone: (530) 750-7650
Email: kimalex@calvoter.org

Common Ground, San Jose, CA 1996

Partners:

San Jose Mercury News
KNTV (ABC)
KPIX-TV (CBS)
KIVE and KARA Radio
Santa Clara Public Libraries

"Common Ground" was an editorial page project designed to encourage public discussion on controversial topics and create public spaces where those discussions could occur. On its editorial and commentary pages, the Mercury News editorial board would publish lists of suggested reading on topics such as affirmative action or changing the state constitution. Library officials recommended the books and magazines and ensured the lists were broad-based and not slanted toward a particular view.

Then, the paper invited readers to attend a small group discussion of the topic at a local library and distributed discussion guides that used the National Issues Forum model of choice exercises.

In 1996, more than 300 people participated in a dozen discussion groups on public education, culminating in a one-hour "Education Town Hall," televised live on Aug. 15, 1996 by KPIX. About 300 people attended the town hall and another 300,000 people watched on TV. Phone lines were manned by library employees and more than 100 people called seeking more information.

Rob Elder
Former Editorial Page Editor
Email: ElderRob@aol.com

Your Voices Count, San Jose, CA 1995

Partners:

San Jose Mercury News
KNTV (ABC)
KPIX-TV (CBS)
KIVE and KARA Radio
Santa Clara Public Libraries

Solid investigative journalism documented the problem of special-interest money corrupting the California State Assembly,but the Mercury News turned to civic journalism to ensure that its investigation had impact. At the end of its hard-hitting "Legislature for Sale" project, the paper asked citizens to volunteer to learn more about and become involved in, the legislative process. Some 200 people responded, and about 75 stayed with the project through the 1995 legislative session.

"Your Voices Count" kicked off June 18 with a front-page story in the Mercury News and a three-part series on KNTV. The paper then held a seminar where experts taught the volunteers the basics of the legislative process and sent the group to Sacramento to observe the process first hand.

The group broke into four teams: accountability, civic involvement, structural reform and campaign finance. They created a "Legislative Statement of Accountability," which they asked all legislators and candidates to sign, and a Web site to help citizens research legislation. Members sponsored a televised Citizens Inquiry Panel and produced a town hall meeting with eight legislators answering questions from an audience of more than 500 people.

The project was not without controversy. Some traditional journalists accused the paper of crossing the line of detached observer in reporting on the activities of a citizen activist group that it had created. Mercury News editors responded that part of the paper's role was in helping citizens become more active civic participants. The citizens group continued work after the project ended.

Kim Alexander
Executive Director
California Voter Foundation
2401 L Street, 2nd floor
Sacramento, CA 95816
Phone: (916) 325-2120
Email:kimalex@netcom.com

Jerry Ceppos
Executive Editor
San Jose Mercury News
750 Ridder Park Dr.
San Jose, CA 95190
Phone: (408) 920-5456

Jonathan Krim (Former Mercury News Project Editor)
Business Reporter
The Washington Post
1150 15th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20071

After the Boom, San Francisco, CA 2001

Partners:

KTVU-TV (Fox), KTVU.com
SFGate.com, San Francisco Chronicle

The partners received funding for a project about the hidden costs of the affluence that accompanied the Bay Area's high-tech boom only to have the boom implode before the project ever got started. The result was a series charting and explaining the region's master narrative as it was happening.

"After the Boom" explored in print and on air such phenomena as "millionaires for a minute," about Bay Area residents whose fortunes rose and fell with alarming speed and "gloaters" who reveled in the comeuppance of the young people who floated on the dot-com bubble. Other topics included the impact of the bust on charitable giving and the transformation in the values and expectations of business school graduates.

Stories began April 29, 2001 in the Chronicle, on KTVU and on both their Web sites. Monthly installments ran through the summer, when the project was interrupted by the sale of the Chronicle. Plans were underway to complete the project in the spring of 2003 with a public forum on the economy.

Contact:

Roland De Wolk
Producer
KTVU-TV (Fox)
2 Jack London Square
Oakland, CA 94605
Phone: (510) 874-0516
Email: roland@sfsu.edu