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Ideas

  • When Community Residents Commit ‘Random Acts of Journalism’

    Dec. 1, 2007 Jan SchafferNieman Reports

    In rural Dutton, Montana, 80 people showed up last fall, wooed by a notion of starting a local news site for this newspaperless town of 375 people. Months later, the community celebrated the launch of the Dutton Country Courier, DuttonCC.org.

  • Construct Your Community’s Info-Structure

    Nov. 13, 2007 Jan SchafferNewspaper Association of America

    In 2005, Lisa Williams launched a hyperlocal news site for her newfound community of Watertown, Mass. Writing with wry, self-deprecating humor, she called it h2otown.info and it was an instant hit.

  • Citizens Media: Has It Reached a Tipping Point?

    Nov. 1, 2005 Jan SchafferArticles | Nieman Reports

    New media initiatives emerge when citizens feel ‘shortchanged, bereft or angered by their available media choices.’

  • Civic Journalism—Growing and Evolving

    Mar. 1, 2005 Jan SchafferArticles | Nieman Reports

    Civic journalism is growing and evolving rapidly because it makes a deliberate attempt to reach out to citizens. Civic journalism can take the form of town meetings–“real” or “electronic”–or watching CSPAN, going on-line or attending focus groups.

  • Reporting on Race: Building a New Definition of ‘News’

    Sep. 1, 2003 Jan SchafferArticles | Nieman Reports

    A report on race reporting by civic journalists highlights some common approaches.

  • Ten of the Many Things I’ve Learned Since Abscam

    Sep. 1, 2002 Jan SchafferArticles | Survival Guide For Women Editors

    As a federal court reporter at The Philadelphia Inquirer, I got a tip one Friday that something big was going to happen that would “involve the Halls of Congress.”

  • Civic Journalism

    Sep. 1, 2000 Jan SchafferArticles | National Civic Review

    In its first effort at inventing a new relationship between the newsroom and the Internet, New Hampshire Public Radio came up with an elegantly logical idea. It created an on-line Tax Calculator that last year helped state residents actually compute the cost of different tax reform measures to their own pocketbooks.

  • Civic Journalism: How the Media Engages Citizens in Public Discourse

    Jun. 24, 1996 Jan SchafferArticles | Nation’s Cities Weekly

    In Charlotte, N.C., more than 1,000 citizens have responded to lists of critical needs in nine of the city’s most crime-ridden neighborhoods. The newspaper collected the lists from neighborhood residents as part of what became its award-series, “Talking Back Our Neighborhoods.”

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