The Banyan Project develop a business model for community-scale online news co-ops that are designed to thrive in news deserts. Banyan is now setting out to proactively seed news co-ops throughout the U.S. and to provide them with quality support services so they succeed.
Community in Unity, created by Alaska Public Media, invites residents of Alaska to sit down and participate in face-to-face discussions in order to tackle relevant community issues. Recorded for radio broadcast, the group conversations have included topics ranging from homelessness to race and identity with the hopes of getting people who wouldn’t normally meet together.
The Yarn Exchange Radio Program shares stories that cultivate a more cohesive community by drawing from its multigenerational and multicultural landscape. The ensemble cast, composed of community members, performs a monthly radio show on themes chosen by the cast.
Capital Public Radio’s The View From Here uses a documentary unit as a capacity building project for reporters in a radio newsroom. The documentaries are each an hour long and tell the stories of three unique people or families, woven together to show how different people deal with a similar social justice issue.
The South Side Photo Walk, an annual workshop going on its ninth year held by Syracuse community newspaper The Stand, uses photography to bring people together and highlight a typical day in the South Side neighborhood of Syracuse, New York. Participants use photography to capture an aspect of the South Side community that is less frequently covered in the media.
Parents connected with community resources to help combat the high infant mortality rate in Richland County. The community baby shower was a response to reporter Brittany Schock’s series on infant mortality: Healing Hope. With SJN, Schock organized the event and set up a Listening Post to give mothers an opportunity to share their experiences, advice, and vulnerabilities.
During the summer of 2016, The Tennessean introduced the Diversity and Inclusion Task Force, a group open to the entire newsroom that tries to tackle the issue of diversity by speaking honestly about newsroom blind spots. The task force ensures that The Tennessean is accurately reflecting the demographics and needs of its community in its coverage and newsrooms.
Headed by Tri-State Public Media (WNIN) producer Paola Marizán, the bilingual podcast ¿Qué Pasa, Midwest? was established with the hopes of telling the stories of Latino community members living in the Midwest. Audience members are able to contribute to the podcast’s production by suggesting their story ideas and guest-starring in podcast episodes.
The Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting (AZCIR) developed what is now known as the “AZ Dark Money Bot,” or @AZDarkMoneyBot, a Twitter bot that enables the automation of “dark money” expenditure reporting. The Bot’s tweets include names of the groups, candidates receiving dark money, and campaign spending.
In October 2017, Vox launched a year-long crowdsourcing project to collect readers’ emergency room bills and bring more transparency to these costs. At the time of producing this case study, Vox has collected more than 1,500 bills since launching the project and produced multiple stories.
University of Oregon’s Sustainable Cities Initiative (SCI) launched their Sustainable City Year Program (SCYP) in La Pine, Oregon and partnered with other departments across campus including the SOJC’s engaged journalism class. They developed an engagement strategy to support the information health of La Pine.
Under the banner of Informed Citizen Akron/Your Vote Ohio, The Jefferson Center organized three, three-day deliberative events that were part of a broader effort to improve election narratives in Ohio. That effort included conducting four statewide polls to determine residents’ top policy concerns.
