Target Transportation, Springfield, VA 1999

Partners:

Newschannel 8

The 24-hour, all-news station conducted a phone survey of 1,000 Washington, DC, area residents and found that traffic congestion is the most-often cited problem that impacts daily life. The survey also showed residents preferred developing more mass transit to building new roads as a way to deal with congestion but were generally pro-growth and optimistic about finding solutions.

The Pew-funded poll was mailed to 600 government and community leaders and became the focus for coverage of the issue throughout the year. Special programming included, in February 1999, a 2 1/2-hour live prime-time broadcast bringing together almost 100 citizens in three Washington area jurisdictions (Northern Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia) with elected officials and transit leaders including three congressmen, two state Secretaries of Transportation, two County Executives and executives of the Metro system.

Contact:

Wayne Lynch
Former VP News and Programming
NewsChannel 8
7600-D Boston Blvd.
Springfield, VA 22153
Phone: (703) 912-5339
Email: w76er@aol.com

Norfolk, VA 1996

Partners:

The Virginian-Pilot
The Harwood Group

For the 1996 elections, the paper completely re-imagined and refashioned campaign coverage, moving from traditional horse race coverage to the innovative (and, later, much-copied) concept of candidate as job applicant. Pew helped fund a new kind of poll that aided this coverage. Rather than a market-driven poll, the Harwood Group conducted a deliberative poll of 672 adults for the paper, one that offered a range of choices and asked respondents the "why" behind their answers. It revealed that voters were as concerned about leadership and character as about candidates' stands on issues.

The paper did little direct reporting on the poll but used the results to frame its coverage. The theme of coverage became "What's got to be done and who's up to doing it?" Candidates were given unprecedented opportunity to speak directly to voters through a "job application," where they described in their own words how they saw the office they were seeking and their qualifications for holding it, and through answers to questions on the issues voters found most important. Virginian-Pilot reporters profiled candidates and reported spot news but framed it within the theme of the campaign as job interview.

The paper explored the issues uncovered in the poll - leadership, economic life, crime, education - both through news stories and through grids that showed candidates' responses to questions surrounding the issues. Innovative graphics were used to make coverage more useful and easier to digest. The paper reported that voters frequently expressed appreciation for the new approach.

Dennis Hartig (Former Managing Editor)
Editorial Page Editor
The Virginian-Pilot
150 W Brambleton Avenue
Norfolk, VA 23510
TEL: (757) 446-2126
FAX: (757) 446-2414
EMAIL: hart@pilotonline.com

Tom Warhover (Former Deputy Managing Editor)
Executive Editor
The Columbia Missourian
PO Box 917
Columbia, MO 65205
TEL: (573) 882-5700
FAX: (573) 882-5702
EMAIL: warhovert@missouri.edu

Project Reconnect, American Society of Newspaper Editors 1998-99

Partners:

News & Observer, Raleigh, NC
The Gazette, Colorado Springs, CO
Fredericksburg Freelance Star, Fredericksburg, VA
The State, Columbia, SC

"Project Reconnect" teamed four daily newspapers with four journalism schools to close the distance that had grown between the papers and certain groups of readers (or ex-readers). In Raleigh, The News and Observer wanted to reconnect with working-class readers. In Colorado Springs, The Gazette sought to lure back business readers. The Fredericksburg Freelance Star wanted to be more relevant to African-American readers and The State in Columbia wanted to reconnect with readers who had strong religious affiliations.

Each team took a different approach and each had different results. One common element, though, was that each met with focus groups of readers in the disaffected category and listened non-defensively for ways in which they could better serve those readers without compromising the paper's overall quality.

The Gazette took the most radical step of the four, launching a whole new Monday business section, "Inside Track," and hiring more business reporters, based on the suggestions of its focus group of business readers.

The News and Observer ran a major project on the blue-collar town of Garner, on Aug. 10, 1997, that included an entire page written by Garner residents. The project showed the paper could accurately reflect the ideas and concerns of working class readers, and the paper pledged to do more to get such stories in the paper on a regular basis.

Rather than a major project, The State took a more systemic approach to reconnecting with religious readers. Focus-group participants, who described themselves as "devoutly religious," objected to being lumped together with labels such as "right-wing Christians." The paper stopped using those labels and began giving more specific information about religious people covered in the news.

Only the Freelance Star saw a conflict between its basic mission and the focus-group suggestions for reconnecting with African-American readers. Focus-group participants objected to the paper's frequent stories about Civil War battles fought more than a century earlier, but editor Ed Jones was reluctant to scale back such coverage, viewing it as a key interest of most readers. Jones said the project convinced him, though, he needed to add stories about African-American history.

Contact:

Judy VanSlyke Turk
Dir, Schl of Mass Communications
Virginia Commonwealth University
P.O. Box 842034
Richmond, VA 23284-2034
Phone: (804) 828-2660