Citizen & Community News

 Joy Mayer, 2010-2011 Fellow

Kelly Moffitt is a Mizzou journalism student. She is working with Joy Mayer this semester on what journalists can learn from other disciplines. She contributed this post to Joy’s blog.

According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, 59 percent of American adults look for health information online. In fact, this type of query is the third most common Internet activity, after using email and search engines. The fourth most common? News-related searches.

While the news industry grapples with the changes the Internet has brought on, health professionals are engaged in a not-too-unsimilar struggle to keep up. The interplay between authority and engagement is a factor in both worlds.

David Cohn, 2010-2011 Fellow

This is a summary of the event that took place at the Reynolds Journalism Institute on April 17th-19th made possible by the Knight Foundation and RJI.

Joy Mayer, 2010-2011 Fellow

Interviews and blog highlights from Joy Mayer's community engagement fellowship

Bill Densmore, 2008-2009 Fellow

A draft consensus statement for journalist/librarian collaboration is circulating after garnering support at “Beyond Books: News, Literacy, Democracy and America’s Libraries,” a two-day Journalism That Matters symposium in Cambridge April 6-7 co-sponsored by the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute.

Joy Mayer, 2010-2011 Fellow

I’ve been at an inspiring workshop the last day and a half. Beyond Books, sponsored by Journalism That Matters and RJI, among others, brought together librarians, journalists and activists. You can see the program, the session recaps and a list of attendees online.

The basic idea is that these groups of people share a common mission of improving their communities through information. Say all you want about journalistic cynicism and profit-chasing. I believe most of the journalists I’ve had the pleasure to work with would say they got into the news biz because they feel like it’s a way of making the world a better place, whether they’re doing that by improving democracy or building connections through storytelling.

Joy Mayer, 2010-2011 Fellow

One of the struggles in talking about relationships between journalists and their audiences is that we too often stay philosophical and talk from our gut.

This morning at South by Southwest, Doreen Marchionni presented her dissertation research on how audiences perceive conversational news. I’ve talked to Doreen about her work before and have learned a lot from it, but I haven’t written about it. I apologize to her for the brevity of this post — her work deserves much more detail.

Joy Mayer, 2010-2011 Fellow

I’ve been to three sessions so far that had as part of their summaries something about measurement in social media. It’s a big theme (for me, but also, it seems, for a lot of people) this year.

I was disappointed in the first two, which seemed happy to stay on the level of “there’s no one good solution.” Of course there’s no one good solution, and of course you should tailor what you measure to your specific goals and strategies. But I don’t want to talk about that for an hour. There’s a nice quick recap of one of those sessions here.

David Cohn, 2010-2011 Fellow

I often find at conferences the size of SXSW the more interesting conversations happen in the hallway.

This year one that keeps coming up is the recent kerfuffle at NPR, the ousting of their CEO and the ongoing political and public relations battle that the organization faces post Juan Williams and now with the James O’Keefe video making the rounds.

Joy Mayer, 2010-2011 Fellow

Kelly Moffitt is a Mizzou journalism student. She is working with Joy Mayer this semester on what journalists can learn from other disciplines. She contributed this post to Joy’s blog. See part one of Kelly’s work on participatory museums.

At the intersection of museums, journalism and this constantly thrilling ride we call engagement, there is a man who can attest to the fact that community involvement practiced in the new world of museums can be practiced in journalism.

Joy Mayer, 2010-2011 Fellow

Why aren’t some journalists easier to get in touch with?

I’ve been thinking about this a lot this year, as I’ve spent time trying to find email addresses or phone numbers for journalists I want to interview about engagement. In several cases, I’ve had to rely on asking friends and colleagues for help in reaching people directly. It’s frustrating for me as a professional journalist. What if I were a reader with a news tip?

Eric Zorn of the Chicago Tribune wrote about this a couple of weeks ago, and I’ve returned to it to mull it over. Here’s part of what he said:

Joy Mayer, 2010-2011 Fellow

Kelly Moffitt is a Mizzou journalism student. She is working with Joy Mayer this semester on what journalists can learn from other disciplines. She contributed this post to Joy’s blog.

Field trips, as a child, usually meant one of two things. You could be heading to an awesome, exciting place where you could touch things, get messy, run around, or make a craft or two. Or you could visit a place full of things you could not touch — nothing to get messy with, no running allowed, and you were expected to contemplate art. Which journeys did you remember most?