Community Media Training

This summary is from a report by the Institute for Nonprofit News and Dot Connector Studio. Voice of OC wanted to explore different forms of monetization while ensuring that interested communities have a real stake in the newsroom by giving them direct access to a vibrant op-ed page, listing more press releases, and instituting a civic calendar. Its main measure of success, online fundraising, soared by more than 117 percent last year. Voice of OC published more than 200 op-eds last year, and implemented a training program to encourage community members to write op-eds. (Here’s an example training.)

Framed by WDET

Drawn from a report by the Institute for Nonprofit News and Dot Connector Studio. Framed by WDET is an audio-visual series that pairs storytelling and photography together to tell the stories of ethnic and cultural communities throughout the Detroit metro area. WDET forms teams consisting of local photographers and award-winning storytellers to document these stories, and then shares the results in a series of audio-visual installations that migrate throughout southeast Michigan.

Calls from Home

For over ten years, Kentucky-based Mountain Community Radio (WMMT) has been producing the weekly radio program Calls from Home, which sends messages and call-outs to prison inmates in Central Appalachia. WMMT records the messages (often from friends and family members), and then broadcasts them on air for prisoners listening in. Calls from Home has been featured by WNYC, West Virginia Public Broadcasting, The American Prospect, Here & Now, and others.

How I Work

With entries going as far back as 2006, “How I Work” is one of the longest-running columns on the Gizmodo Media (née Gawker Media) online publication Lifehacker. The premise of the column is simple: First, Lifehacker asks its readers to share whose workflows and processes they’re interested in learning about. Then, they reach out to the people suggested in those recommendations and profile them and their workflows on the site. (Here’s an example.) The objective of the column is to give readers insights into the successful work habits of others in the hopes of spreading inspiration and best practices.

How Italy’s Cittadini Reattivi Civic Journalism Project is Helping Local Communities

Cittadini Reattivi is an online Italian crowd-sourced civic journalism project focused on health, the environment, and judicial issues. The project serves those who live in areas affected by pollution. Since founder and editor Rosy Battaglia launched the project in 2013, she has been able to gather user-generated story ideas, some of which led to new journalistic investigations.

Community Information Needs

We chatted on finding and filling local information needs: How do you find out what your community needs to know? How do you identify information gaps? And once you’ve found them, how does that knowledge play into what you decide to cover? Join the discussion with Ben DeJarnette of Bridgeliner, Jesse Hardman of The Listening Post, and Mariko Chang of Civil Beat.

Membership Programs

How can membership programs help news organizations build and reward loyalty? What can we do to celebrate and build relationships with our most committed users? Join Emily Goligoski of Membership Puzzle Project, Matthew Peterson of The Atlantic, Caroline Kitchener of The Atlantic, and Gracie McKenzie of The Atlantic to discuss it.