Experience Engagement Session Notes

Sessions Hosts: Tom Glaisyer, Michelle Ferrier, Tom Stites

Participants:
Clair Lorell (reporter)
Miro Merrill
Samantha Shotzbarger
Vanessa Vancour
Amala Alarcon Morris
Michal Wilde
Elissa Adair
Jana Thrift
Mike Fancher
John Spady
Talia Stroud

Notes:
Tom Glaisyer
Democracy Fund Informed Participation Systems Map
What we care about in this session: feedback loops, structures and total community engagement:
Internet adoption and evolution led to user-generated and shared content which led to a wider range of available media perspective, which led to increased quality and quantity
The other story: this range of available media perspective led to a shift and diversification in audience attention, which led to lower economic stability for outlets. This is because the shift in audience attention led to a restructuring of advertising pricing and drop in local advertising revenue. Also contributing to decline in economic stability of local and state media is megasite growth. This leads to a decrease in quantity, quality, and relevance of local and state journalism.
Two other things going on outside of this: loop of disruption and loop of adaptation
As economic stability for locals is declining, the ability to connect with the community and audience declines, which leads to a decrease in diversity of sources, stories and staff, a fall in quantity and quality, leading to a shift in audience attention, leading to a negative impact on the economic health of the community. You now have a newsroom now unable to engage with and inform their communities.
Community perspective: as diversity of sources stories and staff falls, the quality falls, engagement with the public falls, and therefore the role of the newsroom community connection declines. *Engagement may be a way to reverse the economics at play*
*OR*: is it the disintermediation of topics leading to the shift in audience attention – and not the decline of resources and therefore quality reporting. I.e., people don’t have to go to a local outlet to find the news they want (like sports). Does that mean that we need to care about creating platforms that cater to specific topics instead of for specific outlets? (-jo ellen)
Tom Stites: decline in readership in newspapers and tv news viewership was in decline before the cliff. Secular phenomenon that may have been separate from decline in quality resulting from attention shift/diversification
Sydette: the engagement of art and music and artistic critique as a way of creating relationships between subjects, could lessons be learned in policy news for locals?
Carol: focusing not just on the network, but the fabric. making connections between existing networks
Should we be separating event reporting from issue reporting that involves follow-up? Is there enough focus on issue reporting?
Engagement hadn’t previously been a function of economic vitality; but engagement is now a survival reflex.

Michelle Ferrier
Discussing media deserts and the maps to make visible this system
There ar some communities who have never had fresh access to immediate information – how do we create entrepreneurship in this situations?
Map shows a concentration of news media serving the most highly populated areas on the coasts, particularly east coast.
Can we use mapping and feedback loops to understand not only the losses to journalism (jobs, advertising, etc) but what has been the impact on the actual communities? What communities are suffering because of media deserts and this evolution/pattern?
Important to understand at the deep level which communities have always had access and which have always lacked in order to best approach the current landscape
The majority of our country has less than 25% market penetration of local news into their communities (i.e., 25% is engaging through some type of model or subscription)
Change map: shows 120+ newspapers that have died
New jersey map: hyperlocal, patch, and newspapers. Significant overlap with independents in those communities
Using this data to tell a better story at the local level to try and lead to better policy decisions, etc. attempting to develop a report card based on the proportion of zip codes trending towards media deserts, etc.
How can we truly think about what we’re doing as engagement when there have always been underserved communities who’ve lacked access, and not targeted for any engagement by media. This fact disenfranchises communities, and we want to make this visible so that people are aware and active to combat that disenfranchisement and lack of access to fresh, quality relevant information.
Feedback loops: use questions about consumption that help us better serve the community
Future maps will look at income, ethnicity, and education level – often indicators of news deserts, which contributes to the lack of improvement of things like income and education levels, maintaining disempowered communities.
How can we build mechanisms that might help news organizations know their affect, expand their vision, and improve their overall work ?

Tom Stites
Discussing Banyan Project
The goal can no longer be to have every household subscribing to the newspaper because they only serve a certain segment of the population based on advertising needs and structures. There is no enduring change without structural change. we’ve tried to find new models for the sake of democracy, built off of old models, and there are few spots of true success. The decline of existing media is quicker than the growth of new models. So how do we take all of this into account, and where does engagement fit? How do we make the most of digital possibilities to make news better than its ever been? The only change that matters is structural change.
Banyan: aims to strengthen democracy with a replicable model for Web journalism: creating independent news co-ops in underserved communities.
If advertising has always shaped journalism and led to a focus on a specific segment of the population, what can we do to get it back to the goal of 100% market penetration and include as many people as you can? How could we fix accountability problems?
The convergence of values and interests, historically, morphed into large corporate ownership, leading to a decline in accountability to the community. LA Times publisher editor firing perfect example. Even when newsrooms recognize value of engagement, business often won’t allow it.
Creating a true 4th estate: cooperative ownership of news organizations owned the community they’re working with: circulation penetration height was 80%, they’re hoping for 20%.
Cooperative idea is engagement at the deepest level – monetizing engagement and the ability to be part of the conversation. Gatekeeper is now answering to readers instead of advertisers, because readers are owners.
Michelle – what about poor residents who can’t afford to buy in? Doesn’t it create the same problem?
Tom: There are scholarships and financial structures in place to combat this problem
Content creation: small professional staff, freelancers, and community correspondence. proactively seek out a neighborhood correspondent, crowdsourcing, question of the week, engagement forms i.e. using comments to create a story
Michelle: are we tackling the problem of the fact that in media deserts, it does come down to time, money and privilege to engage in this?
Participant Brainstorms:
Establishing/fostering connection to news at very young ages in schools. Do we need to be approaching this from an education/media literacy standpoint? How do we build those consumption habits and connection to journalism from a young age? Newzilla – makes news digestible for different age levels
Do we need a tax system that support journalism that is based not only on an advertising model but is approached like a utility? Would that ever get traction with the general public?
Should there be a subscription model that is also more like a utility (but optional) that provides blanket access to certain content not specific to certain outlets?

Combined Session:

1. How can media do well by doing good — build trust, loyalty, and the bottom line?
2. For media organizations with limited resources, what makes engagement strategic?

– measurable results?

– scalable?

– what works, has worked for you?

Session Hosts: Linda Miller (APM/Public Interest Network), Susan Gleason (YES! Magazine)

Attendees:

• Susan Gleason
• Linda Miller
• Jeff Brown
• Sean O’Connor
• Cylvia Hayes
• Sami Edge
• Steph Routh
• Margaret Staniforth
• Jana Thrift
• Rachel Damgen
• Thomas Schmidt
• Caitlin Moran
• Bill Buzenberg
• jesikah maria ross
• Carrie Watters
• Tracy Loeffelholz Dunn
• Terry Parris Jr.
• Jo Ellen Kaiser
• Joy Mayer
• Amber Rivera

American Public Media (APM) is focused on:

• Indispensible content
• loyal audiences
• engagement and community impact
• inclusion/cultural competence
• financial flexibility

What can we learn from the social enterprise / social good sector?

Why aren’t we thinking about the good we’re doing in our community — and how that’s fundable, and/or good for investments?

YES! Magazine has recently visited its mission, values, and theory of change, and out of that, has elevated ‘engagement’ to one of the three pillars of its work. Our core work is reporting, analysis, and engagement. We’ve prioritized a variety of engagement avenues and strategies over the years, but without a larger, more intentional plan to guide our efforts.

Anything we do at YES! gets evaluated against our money (sustainability) and mission (supporting social change) goals. So, wondering how to evaluate engagement tools, processes, and opportunities, in the face of limited nonprofit resources.

Can we create a social enterprise business model for journalism, that is a hybrid of the loyalty/membership model and underwriting from socially responsible businesses and the people who support them?

Is there a ‘there’ there?

Fourth Estate: mission driven, public benefit, for-profit organization.

We believe in “the business” of journalism.

We ask, “How do we incubate the news business?”

We’ve launched 3 journalism startups. We have a venture fund, plus investors club.

American Public Media: membership model

YES! Magazine: funded by 1) subscriptions, 2) grassroots donors (3500 monthly sustaining donors), and 3) large donations/grants

What does it mean to ‘do good’? What does it mean to do “socially responsible” journalism?

Accountability

Trust

Doesn’t fall into the trap of false equivalency

Considers the harm and weighs it against the public interest

Often leads straight to the “advocacy journalism” argument and fears of losing impartiality

Not talking about prescribing solutions

But getting a grant to cover hunger — for example — and showing possible solutions, does mean resources aren’t spent covering other things. That isn’t advocacy in traditional sense but it is agenda-setting, mission-driven.

What did well, clicks-wise? — this organizational priority is a rough, often unwelcome, driver and repeated drumbeat, for journalists in the newsroom

The Missourian: Example of a socially responsible newsroom. For instance, we’re not going to do crime coverage without context

Media as public service / we have a public good mandate

Journalism in the public interest

We’ve had this model, where we the media are: “The best information brokers”

ProPublica:

We do have a newsroom of experts …. e.g., on Medicare, on the NSA

We have a number of tent pole investigations with deep expertise.

Our journalists know where the stories are, how to collect and synthesize data.

We use crowd-sourcing and engagement to gather stories …

e.g., we’re working on an investigation about Agent Orange exposure

Sometimes engagement starts before the story … with the Agent Orange story we collected 3200 stories from vets.

We always start with evidence!

How we approach investigations at ProPublica:

– first: how can our Engagement Team help start the investigative process?

– then, there’s still a long way to go: taking the data, taking the people stories we’ve gathered, and applying data visualization, applying machine learning to it to gain something more out of it

Newsroom Identity — who they are, and who they’re accountable to

Metrics — how do they feed back in?

At ProPublica we ask: What worked, what fell flat? We look at metrics (ChartBeat, etc) constantly. We have a lot of resources, space, and opportunity. Are we discovering an ROI (for engagement) that is/can be applicable to other organizations? Those 3200 Agent Orange contacts — we can email them directly, which can contribute to the end-result story having a higher impact. Deep audience engagement …. translating that into something we can measure.

Is a next step in engagement: helping readers/listeners talk to each other?

We never look at our audience as one audience.

Creating loyalty with trust, quality is crucial. Engagement is key factor in all three.

Is your newsroom invested in distribution? Giving users opportunities to add, to build on, a story or beat of particular interest? (e.g., call-to-action buttons on stories?)

APM evaluates impact by asking: “Did this change the way you think about an issue? Did this change your conversations/relationships? Did this story/event inspire you to take action?”

Part of social enterprise model is asking people to support what’s important to them. Test hypothesis that people who are impacted by your coverage are likely to want to help support your coverage.

We could be asking our audiences: “If this is of value to you, are you willing to support it?”

The value of VOX explainers.

“How much energy do you use?” – explainer that did really well

How do we know that people don’t want solutions-oriented journalism if we haven’t really provided it?

People have a big, diverse, appetite for media. They want their meat, their potatoes … and their Doritos and donuts.

Model D Media – Telling a different narrative out of Detroit. Solution stories.

Collaboration?

We have pockets of collaboration … but as an industry, we don’t tell our story well.

How can we be relevant to different/multiple stakeholders in the community (public)?

How can we be in, part of, the solutions process (as community forum, etc)?

How can we build trust?

The kind of journalism that helps the healthy growth of the community.

Clay Shirky: We’re in the midst of a revolution — the old model is broken before we know what will replace it. Also known as area of pardox

Public media / commercial media partnerships? Questions? Concerns? Co-opted?

Partnering is happening a lot these days.

How will local newspapers survive if they’re always grouped in “the media” (and all the baggage that holds for how people feel about the media)?

“It speaks to me. It might die without me” = Loyalty

Fourth Estate is a venture fund.

In social enterprise model, people invest in businesses that help them become good citizens

Trust is key, and part of cultivating trust is refusing to give bad actors access to your platforms

Challenges: Hard for people to believe the corporate media does not have an agenda

Starbucks just launched social impact media company. Also, TakePart. The idea of socially responsible media is already taking shape.

• Advocacy journalism (i.e. Jana, who is a videographer for the tiny house movement)
• Activism
• Public service’ (i.e. volunteering)
• Decision making
• Stakeholder gatherings/events
• Provoking emotion/thought through words, art
• Online spaces
• Connectors
• Informal community engagement

Fiona/Jerry: There’s power to the everyday, informal engagement: PTA meeting, soccer field, etc. Is engagement what we’re doing right now in this circle?

Marissa: I work as a city planner. We always hear from folks about a topic, and pass that to policy makers. Our goal is always engagement. We have kiosks that are a visual representation of what the city is working on. (Marla: Those are not very cost effective. Something like $25,000 per kiosk.)

Fiona: The PTA doesn’t look like the school, which is diverse. Parents are working, have multiple jobs. Transportation and time are the problem. Take it to them at the laundromat. Spaces like that.

Marissa – We try to go where people are at: childcare spaces, churches, farmers markets, parks, DMV.

Fiona: Online people can respond immediately to what just read. We need to make the connections. We need to find new ways to get some traction. But how do that in a way that preserves our role?

Carrie – Look for solutions. We did a story about the foster care systems and it saw a surge of new parents because of a success story. If publish a piece it doesn’t have to be the end of it. Balance and sustainability.

Marla – Need to give people choices, tradeoffs. Engage people in a deliberate process.

Jerry – Wildflower Foundation in San Francisco looks for the informal leaders in pockets of communities i.e. barbers. That’s where the action is happening. Seeing one action happening in a community is easier to swallow.

Jesikah – Even in areas where there are limited choices each person should be able to come up with their choice about whether to act or not. Need to be careful about providing ways forward but still respecting their right to decide. Need to think about the public framing for encouraging people to make those choices, get the value out.

Fiona – Solutions journalism…how to navigate the system, the process, how to ask questions.

Celeste – Because I interview social entrepreneurs, changemakers, etc. about what they’re doing and how and they’re challenges, I’m always making connections between them. This women over here is having trouble with X so I connect her with this other women over there who just worked through that problem. It feels weird to withhold that information.

Marla – I did that. I connected the governor and a candidate because they both had a passion for education and I thought it’d be an interesting interview with both. For better or worse No Child Left Behind came out of that. Connectors in the community is an engagement sphere in and of itself.

Jesikah – The #1 impact we’ve seen of our projects is that different groups who didn’t know each other started working together across projects. And that really made the case for funding these engagement initiatives.

Fiona – Example?

Jesikah – We did a project revolving around hunger in Sacramento. We had monthly meetings, advisory group, stakeholder convenings with these groups and became sort of a hub. Twelve people who didn’t know each other worked together over a year and now do. I identify as a community organizer even though I wouldn’t necessarily say that where I work. Social justice and advocacy often overlap but don’t have to. We need new ways of bringing the newsroom and people together to tell accurate, nuanced stories. Maybe there’s a whole world full of community organization we can turn to and learn from. But there’s a certain comfort level to break through. It’s not appropriate for a public media org to take a position or try to move people to policy to change action.

Fiona – You can’t give your opinion. You need to stay out of the convo at a certain level but you can facilitate conversation in a way. People have to trust you, you can’t show favoritism. There’s a certain comfort level as a journalist you’re playing with.

Marissa – You need to be representatives of the process and not the outcome.

Marla – Find a topic where there’s a consensus for the common good. Everyone wants to increase the high school graduation rate. The T.V. and radio stations formed an alliance for coverage because it was something everyone agrees on as a good idea.

Jesikah – People in the newsroom would say – we listened to the people, it’s a top priority, we have a responsibility to inform our public.

Fiona – You’re deeming what’s important in the decision

of what you don’t cover.

Carrie – You don’t have to advocate for a specific method or solution, just show what’s out there.

Marissa – Tree Code. Everyone has emotional rxn to trees. Everyone agreed sh*t wasn’t working. Can start from place of agreement. Our stakeholder groups were polarized but they had more in common than they thought.

Jerry – How then to get people to think of the common purpose? That can be fairly neutral.

Tim – Paradox of actually having to follow the “no” so you can uncover the “yes.” People often have less differences than they perceive. Go in detail to explore the “no” and what in particular it stands for.

Marla – Opposite of appreciative inquiry

Marissa – We’d do a quick vote at our stakeholder meetings. Red card, yellow card, green card. People check in to see where they’re at. Ask what would help them go from red to yellow.

Fiona – Why don’t we think of ourselves as community organizers?

Marla – If you make a choice to do that as a journalist, you need to make that clear from the beginning.

Jesikah – Make clear what your values are about. If you get pushback in the newsroom it could be helpful to do a 5 Why’s Exercise. It’s a good way to uncover what people’s values, mission, and passion are. Why are you doing this? Etc. It’s a way to find the common good. Might find you have the same values as someone you work with but didn’t know it.

Tim – You’d also find their fear and vulnerabilities

Marla – My sister works in theatre and a lot with the body. She’s says, “Before you engage with others, you need to engage with yourself.”

Jana – Found music really works with Alzheimer’s patients.

Fiona – Journalists don’t want framing clichés. Agreement is the starting point. Allow journalists to recognize what’s interesting to them, what are the commonalities. But if they’ve already decided what the story is going to be they’re not going to be open.

Jerry – Find the deeper purpose.

Marla – Let’s give space to people working through issues, ambivalence. We don’t have to be clear. Maybe ask, What aren’t you sure of? What are you struggling with?

Carrie – Give readers very specific methods, information to get to a solution

Fiona – I’d like to know what reader’s questions are. Give them a space to ask questions. Maybe at the bottom of the story – What questions do you have for the reporter/in general about this issue? Reporter could get involved in the comments section. Those explaining pieces are really popular.

Tim – Questions can be used to steer

Marissa – We use librarians for research a lot because they’re neutral.

Marla – ALA and Harvard are working on a project to meaningful engage communities and connect them to the library

Fiona – Libraries help you navigate information. Reporters need to be more like a community organizer/librarian to archive, hold knowledge in a way where people can really access it.

Host: Mike Green

Overarching outcome of session (consensus among participants): The people that newsrooms aim to serve should be involved in the process of deciding what is newsworthy.

Synopsis: The group believed that too often storytelling and the framing of issues and what constituted “news” was pre-determined by newsrooms and that wasn’t a healthy approach. They asked a variety of questions regarding how newsroom narratives that frame issues around controversy, the rush to post stories first, and digital cash-for-clicks business models impacted the health of the communities they serve. The conversation initially centered around a frustrated community that perceived all media as a monolithic entity separate from the community, which produced a stream of sensationalism versus covering real issues with context and sensitivity to the impact those stories would have on real people. The lens through which communities often view media was described as “Apocalypse Fatigue.”

The conversation evolved toward changing the newsroom model that determined what is newsworthy. Questions regarding newsroom capacity and a need for speed suggested some stories lacked the quality they otherwise might have due to the pressures upon the newsroom itself. Reporters too often gravitate toward ease of story discovery and controversy, which undermines the integrity of newsrooms to engage and cover the community with an honest concern and sensitivity around the impact of issues and narratives.

The group concluded that newsrooms should see themselves as a part of the community, which could be defined as a group of people with shared experiences; people with whom we have relationships and to whom we feel accountable. The group felt that media literacy through the training of communities to engage proactively with newsrooms in a healthy manner is important. Communities could be invited to assist in finding errors and actively submit stories and issues important to them through a recognized and easy process to which the newsroom is responsive.

Q: How can journalists incorporate a balance of controversy vs community-based solutions? Can journalists be more proactive vs only reactive?

The group suggested when newsrooms are determining what is newsworthy they should ask:

• Why does this matter?
• Can newsworthy items contain more than hard news?
• What makes the community feel proud?
• Is there a balance between advocacy journalism and hard news?
• Is advocacy and community engagement “real” news?
• Do the tone and tenor of the words reflect the attitudes of community members?
• What is our “community”?

MORE NOTES:

Is a monolithic media perception healthy?

Click for cash model has changed media’s relationship with the community

Community is frustrated with sensationalism and that media often miss real issues

Current business model and focus on speed undermines integrity

Lack of newsroom capacity impacts quality of stories

Reporters gravitate toward ease of discovery and controversy

How can journalists incorporate a balance of context and relevant information that is newsworthy

Journalists key on community controversy when listening to conversations

Need balance between ease of access to controversy vs community-based solutions

Community has apocalypse fatigue

Social media provides space for community conversation

When determining what is newsworthy, ask why does this matter?

Too often institutionalized thinking vs community input informs the narrative

Multiple stories on an issue can emerge from community conversations and journalist curiosity

Audiences form around affinity issues

Community – a group of people with shared experiences; people to whom we feel accountable, have relationships with

Storytelling too often pre-determined by newsrooms

Framing issues through the lens of who to quote or cover

What should newsrooms do when communities respond with backlash?

Newsrooms begrudgingly respond to error; should make catching errors a community activity

Media Literacy: How do we train communities to engage newsrooms with prospective news stories?

Reporters lens: what is new, timely, unique?

How does systemic bias play out in newsrooms?

Are we pigeonholing community members by race, gender, etc?

Session Hosts: Michelle Bach-Coulibaly, Dan Archer, Anne Stadler
Reporter: Anne Stadler

Participants:
Amber Rinera
Jim Cynqler
Amalia Alarcón Morris
Marla Choukett
Vanessa Vancour
Mitch Fantin
Samantha Shotzbarger
Kathryn Langstaff
Jerry Millhon
Margaret Stanitan
Sean O’Connor
Sheetal Agorwal
Marissa Grass
Thomas Schmidt
Michelle Bach

Narrative:
We started in a large circle with each host offering her/his suggestion re what we focus on:
MIchelle: I want to offer authentic embodied experience expressing what’s going on inside of us, no editing, open hearted, listening.
Dan: Hope that we’ll offer practical tools that help people enter a space they might not normally be.
Anne: I suggest we cultivate a spirit of Yes, appreciate what everyone offers. Play and open space for unknown to emerge.

Michelle invited everyone to introduce themselves via a Call and Response process. We stood in a circle. Each of us in turn called out our full name. The circle responded with shouting a response that reflected the persons’ offering. Each person did this four times, expressing all the moods he/she felt, then the Caller role moved to the next person.

What’s a story from the community that illustrates a real example of building empathic narrative?
Steve: In my community a tragedy occurred: a young girl was strangled accidently, A large community gathering came together over a meal: so that young people and olders could have a conversation and process that allowed the youth share their needs and feelings re what had happened. In the course of it, everyone benefitted from creating a collective narrative through empathic conversation.

Comments:
People are comfortable and feel they “belong” when they break bread together (share a meal).
Elected officials (and others) respond to peoples’ needs when they’re telling their personal stories. Data is not enough to move people, they need the hook of personal stories.
Empathy is the most powerful tool for helping people connect to different ways of thinking & different perceptions. You are thinking & feeling simultaneously.
Inviting vulnerability is important. There are places such as Listening Posts, audio, and Smart Phone apps that invite intimacy and encourage vulnerability.
Pay attention to creating a safe space in which you invite the person to tell his/her story.

Q What is the emergent quality at play? When you are in a real environment, how do you remain in that vulnerable generative space?

Michelle offered a game to quickly invite empathic connection & communication:
Pick a partner (dyads) Each in turn, in two minutes, tell your partner the story of “What was a powerful experience that changed your life?” Then share that story with the whole circle by BEING the person (“Hello. I am Jim….etc) (That was hilarious in at least one instance when Dan “became” his partner, a woman, who told the story of giving birth to her baby and how it transformed her life.)

Jerry: How do you recreate the intimacy of the playing we did when you are sourcing for the story?
–let your heart lead your curiousity to learn the person’s experience
–Notice cues of intimacy
–your eyes are the camera
–feel the story coming up through your body (resonance?)
–feel the realization as if you were living it for the first time.
— show it physically via dramatic reconstruction in real space (a la Dan’s 3 D)

Playing allowed us to transcend our shyness and open space within ourselves.

How do we create the space where people go over the threshold of shyness?
Dan: In the virtual: Tell a personal story people can identify with. Set it in a real space. Then reveal the story(s) happening within that space. Show rather than tell.

Example of a video game that is empathic: That Dragon Cancer.

Key words describing the essentials (contributed by participants at end):
“I am because we are”
authentic
safe container
feeling someone’s story come up through your body
Connect with self/other/whole circle via opening space
empathic narratives are third person becoming first person
Connecting occurs from the heart and gut not the brain
resonance

LISTENING:
“Listen to learn, not listen to tell | People, not projects/problems | Stories, not systems/symbols | Science (experiment, investigate, expand), not engineering (implement, apply, constrain) | Action (incremental, MVP, growth), not plans (top down, rigid, scale)”
“Don’t anticipate a story. Just listen.”
“Sharing stories with others (whether that’s by mouth, paper, online, art…) spreads awareness and change. LISTEN to the issues that communities are struggling with & LISTEN to the solutions they’ve also found. Sharing these stories can lead to different solutions that work for different people.”
“News organizations need to make the space for their journalists to really listen and reflect what they hear. And then they need to provide the information that the community really needs.”
“Journalists can set aside their agendas and listen to the people they interview. Tell the story that is already there, not the one they want to see.”
“Tell the story in front of you, and not the one that fits your narrative. Be true to the authenticity of the pieces, and remember, the conversation is just beginning when you hit ‘publish’.”

—

INCLUSIVITY:
“Nothing about us without us”
“We are all together in the business of creating positive change. But we cannot do it effectively without INCLUDING each other.”
“Invite journalists into rich community gatherings, acknowledge the possibility of an ongoing relationship, develop trust – outcomes of the work, share and collaborate, sustain – let the work provide a seedbed for the future.”
“Recruit people FROM the communities you want to engage to work with you. Invite people IN and go OUT.”

—

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT:
“How communities and journalism can thrive together: Wide and easy access to robust and reliable journalism is a crucial component of civic health. Civic health strengthens local economies. Strong local economies support stronger journalism. It’s a regenerative loop.”
“Doggedly insist on answers to the question: How does public sector (gov’t & philanthropic) economic development investment inure to the benefit of ALL of the public?”

—

FINDING STORIES:
“How can communities and journalism thrive together? When people see their lived experiences reflected in the news, when people see answers to the questions they have about their communities in the news, when people see the value of journalism and share the values that drive the best journalism.”
“Don’t just tell the stories that CAN be told. Tell the stories that SHOULD be told.”
“We don’t know what others need, familiarity can often make us unaware of the power of things close to us.”
“Authentically pursue in telling and honoring the WHOLE story.”

—

EMPOWERMENT:
“Empower the people/communities newsrooms cover to be involved in the process of determining what is important and newsworthy.”
“We will thrive together when journalists work as a place for community voices to be heard and shared, thereby creating a network of change wanted by most everyone.”

—

INTENTIONALITY:
“We need to state our intentions publicly, get clear on our goals and dreams, and invite the community along for the journey.”
“Be intentional to promote diversity that is reflective of your community to ensure all have a voice – participate.”
“By building community (intentional space/opportunity to convene and exchange insight and ideas)”
“Be clear about what we value.”

—

HONORING COMMUNITY VOICE:
“Appreciate the ways in which our success is linked. Work together, as if our lives depend on it. They do.”
“Communities everywhere are not level. There are those whose stories are constantly ignored or mistold. The best organizations are not the ones that abandon diversity, but lacking a disjointed power structure of advantaged and disadvantaged. As journalists we must help lift up the separated and marginalized until the community is level in its variety.”
“Respect the people and institutions on the outside – do not sanitize their experiences, but bring them in. End goal isn’t always a big change – but looking at each other.”
“Journalists inquire more from their communities about what’s happening – concerns, wants and problems – and write about them.”
“What would journalism look like if it was generated OUT of community rather than FOR community?”
“Building community from the bottom up | Sharing wisdom of place through messaging knowledge | Evoking story from within and communicating the “field” of communication within communities”
“Journalism should tap into insight of community/orgs, NOT BE comm/orgs. Do the journalism and amplify out”
“Always ask the Q: Act as though there were no boundaries. What would we accomplish together?”
“To thrive together, communities and journalists must DECIDE together. What is important?”

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RESILIENCE/CELEBRATE COMMUNITY SUCCESSES:
“Good stories emerge from authentic conversation with diverse groups of people.”
“Tell stories of optimism and victory with the same passion we bring to tragedy.”
“By highlighting not only the successes of our communities, but also the efforts of those who have not yet succeeded and who are actively engaged in creating solutions to the issues in our community. If we support them, we are all more likely to succeed together.”
“Stories can help communities see the path to achieve what they thought was impossible.”
“The importance of role modeling so that communities know what is possible.”
“Journalists need community members to enlighten them about pressing issues and needs AND ALSO potential solutions that are in progress. Proven success isn’t always the best story, sometimes simple promise is.”
“Use mentorship to show real change happens incrementally.”

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ACCOUNTABILITY:
“Be part of an ecosystem | Cultivate listening, learning and telling stories of what IS thriving. | Hold yourselves and others accountable for your public license to serve the community.”

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EMBRACING DISCOMFORT:
“Communities and journalists can thrive through honest, authentic (though sometimes uncomfortable) conversation to creat work representational of PEOPLE not roles.”
“Create the time, space, platform, what have you that allows for people to get comfortable with the uncomfortable – the ideas and experiences they know nothing about.”
“Communities and journalism can thrive together when a journalist is both part of the community and willing to seek out the discomfort that comes with being a fair and accurate reporter.”

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BUILD RELATIONSHIPS:
“Journalists need to develop/build relationships with people who live in the communities they write stories about – beyond just dealing with those in leadership roles. It is important for journalist to know the history of and experience of that community.”
“Find and collaborate in areas of mutual self interest.”
“Journalism becomes fully integrated into the greater whole community ecosystem, committed to developing thriving, regenerative community.”
“Don’t just invite communities to YOUR (media) table… get out and join their table, build relationships, share a meal, create trust. Inclusiveness is not just throwing your doors open and saying you have a safe space to engage.”
“Journalism can be an honest witness to communities as they learn how to thrive.”
“Businesses can make communities/democracy healthier by funding objective JOURNALISM in their area of interest. Journalists will need to lead.”
“Recognize we are all part of the same community and that we all are collaborators in sharing authentic stories that bring value and call us to develop as human beings.”