PANEL HIGHLIGHTS
Maureen Mann, Editor, The Forum
Jeremy Iggers, Founder, Twin Cities Daily Planet
OVERVIEW
In rural Deerfield, N.H., former teacher Maureen Mann and other residents were frustrated by the lack of media coverage of their community. In Minnesota’s largest metro area, a group of professional journalists and academics worried that local news reporting in Minneapolis and St. Paul left out too many voices and neighborhood issues.
Those concerns launched enterprising community news models that could advance citizen-driven journalism beyond the blog.
The reporting cooperative forumhome.org in New Hampshire has used a distinctly different approach in a vastly different community than fellow 2005 New Voices grantee TCDailyPlanet.com, the community news aggregator in Minneapolis, but both have provided a greater voice to area residents. They also illustrate what Tom Kunkel, dean of the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland, described in opening the second Citizens Media Summit as the evolving power “to create your own version of journalism.”
“It seems to me that what you’re doing is combining the modern, the communications revolution that is allowing this to happen, with the eternal, which is the passion to tell stories and the desire to know what’s going on around you,” Kunkel said.
Maureen Mann, Editor, The Forum,
Deerfield, N.H.
The dearth of local news in tiny Deerfield, N.H., reached a low point for Maureen Mann in early 2004, when the February edition of the school newsletter that doubled as community bulletin announced the schedule for candidates to run in the municipal elections. Except, the deadline was Jan. 26.
“Out of 22 offices, there were eight that no one ran for at all,” Mann said.
“Essentially, we exist because nothing else existed,” said Mann, who taught high school social studies, English and psychology for 30 years. “If the major media, the news media somewhere around us ever covered us, we wouldn’t be here today.”
Working with the Friends of the Deerfield Library, Mann used a $12,000 New Voices grant awarded in 2005 from J-Lab: The Institute for Interactive Journalism at the University of Maryland to launch The Forum. A newly formed non-profit organization now oversees the volunteer operation.
The Forum evolved swiftly into a timely local news source through its online site, where residents contribute stories about everything from high school sports to road closings and municipal meetings. A quarterly print edition helps draws advertisers and reaches the many residents without reliable high-speed Internet access.
“People really feel like this has made a difference in our small community,” Mann said.
In the 2006 elections, all but two municipal officers had a contest, Mann said. And voter turnout rose to 33 percent of voters from 20 percent the previous year.
In the past year, The Forum has expanded its reach to three small neighboring towns. It also now has some competition: the area’s largest regional newspaper, the Manchester Union Leader, launched a new zoned edition covering Deerfield in fall 2006.
Jeremy Iggers, Founder, Twin Cities Daily Planet,
Minneapolis, Minn.
Part local newswire, part home to emerging community voices, the online Twin Cities Daily Planet launched in May 2006 as an experiment in fostering citizen journalism and enhancing coverage of local issues.
The Daily Planet was the brainchild of Jeremy Iggers, an author and restaurant critic for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, and the Twin Cities Media Alliance, a loose band of professional journalists and academics.
Each day, the site culls news stories from about 40 local publications, including neighborhood newsletters, alternative weekly and month publications and newspapers serving the region’s African-American, Hmong and other ethnic communities.
Those media partners provide roughly 90 percent of TCDailyPlanet.com’s content; the rest is generated by local writers, bloggers, community activists and newly minted citizen journalists. The result, Iggers said, is a deep and diverse examination of the Twin Cities.
“I think one of the most valuable things that we’re doing is we’re taking good work that shows up in places like Hmong Today, which most (residents) never, never see and putting it where a larger audience can see it,” Iggers said.
The site is overseen by managing editor Craig Cox, a professional journalist who works with 15 volunteer section editors. The site’s operating budget is bare bones, and there is no money for marketing, but Iggers said the Daily Planet in its first few months still has built a steady following – about 1,100 to 1,200 readers visit the site each day.
Future plans calls for professional development seminars for the group’s media partners.
Jump to other panel summaries:
Panel 1: New Kinds of Hyperlocal Start-ups
Panel 2: Solo-jos with Community Impact
Panel 3: Mainstream Media: Past Lessons, Future Vision
Panel 4: Building Sustainability
Panel 5: Citizen Television Correspondents
First Release: Highlights of Phase 1 Ford-funded study of citizen media projects
