Models for community engagement: Difference between revisions
Susanmernit (talk | contribs) (New page: Models for community engagement Susan Mernit says: I'm preparing to launch Oakland Local, a community news and information hub (has a JLab seed grant) that will marry grassroots community...) |
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PLEASE POST YOUR THREE BURNING QUESTIONS, IDEAS ON WHAT YOU WOULD LIKE TO SHARE AND COMMENTS HERE | PLEASE POST YOUR THREE BURNING QUESTIONS, IDEAS ON WHAT YOU WOULD LIKE TO SHARE AND COMMENTS HERE | ||
One of the BIG debates for us in Grahamstown is how much we get involved in the issues, and how much we raise them, fairly objectively, and then just see what happens. Just in May/June we've had the huge issue of new bus rank in the centre of our historic town -- we just told it 'like it is', ie what the plans were etc, and resisted the temptation to climb into the debate, editorialize etc. Then lots of people got involved, pro and con, new ideas flowed, lots of passion, and a nice spike in our newly unveiled version 2 of our sms comment line. | |||
While their is a slight slant in most of our stories, on some of the most contentious, our editor likes to play it as straight as possible and see. Sometimes we don't get the outcomes we want, but his view is we're a powerful resource in our city, and many issues are complex, and our job is to the maximum number of people involved (part of what we're up to with Iidaba Ziyafika, and cell phone CJ etc), facilitated involvement, but not necessarily 'take a stand'. I'm much more from the take a stand school -- I'd love to hear what others think during this session. | |||
Two related 'burning' questions -- fomenting issues organically (as opposed to waiting for them to arise from a beat report, an event, a meeting, ie something external), and the issue of the safety of young reporters who 'whistle-blow' on under performing (and worse) teachers and principals at their schools. | |||
Revision as of 00:00, 17 June 2009
Models for community engagement
Susan Mernit says: I'm preparing to launch Oakland Local, a community news and information hub (has a JLab seed grant) that will marry grassroots community information/news with beat reporting and investigative journalism and am eager to discuss models and best practices.
I'd like to do a session with others on this topic and explore best practices, what works, tools etc.
PLEASE POST YOUR THREE BURNING QUESTIONS, IDEAS ON WHAT YOU WOULD LIKE TO SHARE AND COMMENTS HERE
One of the BIG debates for us in Grahamstown is how much we get involved in the issues, and how much we raise them, fairly objectively, and then just see what happens. Just in May/June we've had the huge issue of new bus rank in the centre of our historic town -- we just told it 'like it is', ie what the plans were etc, and resisted the temptation to climb into the debate, editorialize etc. Then lots of people got involved, pro and con, new ideas flowed, lots of passion, and a nice spike in our newly unveiled version 2 of our sms comment line. While their is a slight slant in most of our stories, on some of the most contentious, our editor likes to play it as straight as possible and see. Sometimes we don't get the outcomes we want, but his view is we're a powerful resource in our city, and many issues are complex, and our job is to the maximum number of people involved (part of what we're up to with Iidaba Ziyafika, and cell phone CJ etc), facilitated involvement, but not necessarily 'take a stand'. I'm much more from the take a stand school -- I'd love to hear what others think during this session. Two related 'burning' questions -- fomenting issues organically (as opposed to waiting for them to arise from a beat report, an event, a meeting, ie something external), and the issue of the safety of young reporters who 'whistle-blow' on under performing (and worse) teachers and principals at their schools.