At the Democracy Fund, we believe that creating a stronger future for local news requires us to focus on transforming the relationship between news consumers and news producers. As we develop a new program to support and expand “Engaged Journalism,” we have sought to ensure that our new efforts are informed by the successes and struggles of the past — especially the civic journalism movement of the 1990s. This paper was commissioned for the purposes of understanding that history and what has changed since, so that we will be more likely to succeed today.
Focus Area: Public Square
Blog
Civic Journalism, Engaged Journalism: Tracing the Connections
“Want to attract more readers? Try listening to them.” That’s the headline on Liz Spayd’s debut as the New York Times’ new public editor. That she devoted her first column to the need to pay attention to readers’ views shows how central the idea of engagement has become for journalists.
She is building on an emerging trend. Mediashift recently published a series of articles called “Redefining Engagement,” inspired by a conference in Portland last October. (They provide a rich trove for anyone seeking to understand the movement.)
Consider also the ONA London 2016 engagement conference in April. A book by Jake Batsell called Engaged Journalism: Connecting with Digitally Empowered News Audiences. An Engaging News Project at the University of Texas, and the Agora Journalism Center at Oregon.
A Reuters Institute report looked at engagement and the 2015 UK elections. The Coral Project creates tools for engagement. An Engagement Summit in Macon, Georgia, in January that I attended produced this manifesto. And more and more newsrooms are naming engagement editors, as Elia Powers describes.
The Democracy Fund sees public engagement as a key element of its work to support vibrant media and the public square. And among the questions it has considered as it thinks about today’s engaged journalism is this: How is it different from civic journalism?
Many will remember—some with a touch of heat—the 1990’s movement known as civic (or public) journalism, which called for a rethinking of newsrooms’ relationships with their communities. Is today’s engaged journalism a new chapter of that movement? As someone who edited a newspaper during those earlier years, and who is now working as a senior fellow and consultant with the Democracy Fund, I’d say the short answer is yes – but: Engaged journalism is a much-evolved descendant, born into a radically changed landscape.
Civic journalism’s proponents felt that journalism was failing our democracy in important ways. Detachment from community was part of the reason. A working relationship with the community to help shape local journalism was key to the solution.
Wikipedia has a richly helpful entry on what it calls this “idea of integrating journalism into the democratic process.” It continues, “The media not only informs the public, but it also works towards engaging citizens and creating public debate.” The movement’s intellectual founding father, Jay Rosen, wrote that “public journalism tries to place the journalist within the political community as a responsible member with a full stake in public life.” The now dormant Pew Center for Civic Journalism said the practice “is both a philosophy and a set of values supported by some evolving techniques to reflect both of those in journalism. At its heart is a belief that journalism has an obligation to public life – an obligation that goes beyond just telling the news or unloading lots of facts. The way we do our journalism affects the way public life goes.”
One of the most important truths about civic journalism is that it came into being at a time when newsrooms were confident (many would say arrogant) in their top-down role as society’s primary sources of news. Moreover, their organizations were enjoying robust economic success. There was little thirst for prescriptions for improvement, however well intentioned.
More specifically, the movement’s opponents resisted it as a threat to journalism’s essential ethic of independence, and as a challenge to its time-honored allegiance to objectivity. (Not to mention the plain old comfort of operating by familiar patterns and enjoying a sense that it was newsrooms, not the critics, who understood what the public needed.) For whatever mix of reasons, by 1997, a survey of Associated Press Managing Editors found that only 7 percent of respondents strongly agreed that civic journalism was “an important way for many news organizations to reconnect with their alienated communities.”
And yet, there is this interesting truth: Within the two decades between then and now, the most basic principle of civic journalism has come into widespread usage. Virtually every newsroom has a richer conversation with its readers, viewers, listeners (or, in Rosen’s memorable phrasing, “the people formerly known as the audience”). In this way, civic journalism prevailed after all.
What changed over those two decades? Almost everything in the journalism world. Advertising became disconnected from news, leaving news organizations bereft of their principal means of support. Technology fractured journalism’s audiences. It also radically redefined roles, opening remarkable opportunities for the public as providers and creators of information. Trust in media continued to plummet. News organizations that once seemed to print money began to pile up debt. Newsrooms that had been averse to change began desperately looking for answers.
What did not change is concern about the health of our democracy. That concern, if anything, has deepened since the ‘90s, when it served as a primary motivation for civic journalism.
And so to 2016’s buzzword, “engagement.” What questions (or answers) does the experience of civic journalism offer its young relative? It would be a mistake to be too definitive about this. Engaged journalism is very much a concept in formation. Still, some fruitful points for examination present themselves:
- Civic journalism was, by design, loosely defined. (Rosen himself called it everything from an argument to a debate, an adventure to an experiment.) It was a continual work in progress, repeatedly being invented in different ways by different partners. However intentional, the vagueness did at least lend a hand to those who chose to dismiss it.
It’s probably important for engaged journalism, too, to keep its parameters flexible enough to allow for different methods of practice among varied practitioners in diverse communities. Still, some clarity as to its primary goals and baseline practices seems essential in order to spread its message, create a vibrant cohort of practitioners, and gauge its impact.
- If stubbornness and blitheness were a part of journalists’ resistance to civic journalism, so was the substantial question of how to be responsive while retaining independence. With a clear-eyed understanding of this valid concern, engagement enthusiasts will be better prepared to help newsrooms find ways to ensure that community-mindedness can coexist with, for example, investigative zeal. This fine Mediashift piece is a good place to start.
- Civic journalism was presented to journalists largely as a recommendation for change in their behavior in relation to the community. Newsrooms today are far from the dominant force they were, and the position of the public has changed dramatically. The former “audience” has in its own hands the tools to shape the flow of information in the public interest. This new public role—along with new technologies and transparency and social-media tools, as well as growing interest from community partners such as libraries – means that engagement now holds the promise of something much broader than a change in newsroom practices.
- Civic journalism asserted that journalism thrives only if community thrives – an implicit promise regarding the future health of journalism, yes, but not specifically about its business model. Today, engagement is offered by some proponents as precisely a business model. Indeed, in some applications it seems indistinguishable from audience development; a matter simply of building a user base. How well engagement can serve both goals remains to be seen. (While Philadelphia’s news outlet Billy Penn is not yet profitable, its engagement practices seem promising in that regard. In 2015, events accounted for about 80 percent of revenue.)
- Civic journalism was no doubt weakened by the fact that newsrooms largely failed to reflect the demographics of their communities. This remains woefully true today, and engagement efforts that ignore this will surely be undermined. The proliferation of new startups and the ability of previously under-attended voices to be heard in social media offer promise.
- Civic journalism bemoaned journalism’s “view from nowhere,” to use another of Rosen’s apt terms. Now, partly because of a growing emphasis on consumers’ appreciation of “voice,” partly because of critiques about false equivalency and about journalists’ failure to share all they know, journalists have gotten better at not being that voice from nowhere. It is clearer now that they are not disinterested observers. On its face, this offers promise for connection. But if journalists have gotten better at claiming their own voice, their talent and taste for listening to public voices seems less thoroughly developed. Taking advantage of the new tools of engagement will be essential.
Civic journalism was a reconsideration of journalism’s practice: Don’t stand off and deliver; ask the community to help shape your work. Engaged journalism, too, reconsiders journalism’s practice but, at its best, considers the new potential for not just journalists, but all citizens to collaborate in bringing about a more informed public. Journalists no longer have a lock on information. Members of the public are now their partners. As a consequence, greater attention is paid to the impact of journalism, to what about it attracts readers or drives them away, to how it affects people’s actions. Businesses, nonprofits and politicians can reach the public directly. Transparency is increasing, and accountability along with it. This could be a promising moment for a melding of legacy journalism’s best strengths, civic journalism’s commitment to community and the new culture of participation.
Systems Map
Local News and Participation Systems Map
Original reporting, informed dialogue, and sharp debate all contribute to a healthy democracy in local communities. But local news outlets are dwindling as audiences and advertisers shift to digital and mobile platforms, often with a smaller footprint — leaving media deserts in locations where coverage once flourished. At the same time, promising local journalism experiments are cropping up across the country. Foundations and for-profit players are investing in innovative outlets as well as tools and models that reduce reporting costs and support civic engagement around breaking news.
How can these promising “green shoots” be widely planted and fully cultivated? More broadly, how can we better understand and effectively address the dynamics that shape how people learn about local issues, and about ways to participate in the civic life of their communities?
We believe that using systems thinking to map the Local News & Participation system can bring new understanding to all who want to support active citizens and vibrant media as vital elements in a healthy democracy.
With input from local news analysts, editors, journalists, funders, and other stakeholders, the Democracy Fund has generated a map of this system — starting with the reality that the Internet is transforming the dynamics of local news and providing remarkable new opportunities for public engagement.
Version 1.0 of the map centers on the powerful economic shifts that have jolted the local news landscape, and on the innovative efforts to create and sustain digital approaches for reporting and public dialogue. The map is grounded in our assessment of the key factors that affect the health of democracy and the local public square.
Understanding Our Analysis
Local News and Participation: Role of the Public Square
In a healthy democracy, people need reliable information, a watchdog to hold the powerful accountable, and opportunities to express and compare opinions on the issues of the day. Original investigative reporting, informed dialogue, and sharp debate all feed democratic engagement at the local level. Together these form a public square – a venue for citizens to learn, organize, engage, and be heard.
The State of Local News in 2015
In the U.S., our public square sits at a crucial turning point – facing important opportunities and threats to the ongoing vitality of political participation in our communities and nation. The Internet’s massive disruption to local news ecosystems has produced both significant opportunities and real threats to the health of our democracy. As powerful economic shifts have jolted the local news landscape, innovative efforts to create and sustain digital approaches for reporting and public dialogue have also emerged. The Internet is transforming the dynamics of local news and providing remarkable new opportunities for public engagement. Promising local news experiments are cropping up across the country. At times, these new platforms are meeting community information and participation needs more effectively than legacy news institutions had been able to in the past. At the same time, local legacy news outlets are shrinking as audiences and advertisers shift to digital and mobile platforms – leaving news deserts in locations where coverage and vigorous conversation once flourished. How can we better understand and effectively address the dynamics that shape how people learn about local issues and ways to participate in the civic life of their communities? Mapping the dynamics around local news and participation brings new understanding to all who want to support active citizens and vibrant news media as vital elements in a healthy democracy. The Democracy Fund Engagement Program team has generated a visual map of the dynamics influencing the public, news outlets, journalists, and others concerned with community information needs. Our framing statement is: “You can’t understand how local journalism enables or inhibits a healthy democracy unless you understand ________.”
Critical Dynamics
In many places, news outlets are shrinking, disappearing, or splintering into disparate units. However, at the same time, some outlets and individuals have successfully built new business models that have not only helped maintain a flow of quality, relevant news and community information, but also helped increase civic engagement. This successful experimentation has bolstered the viability of some news organizations and encouraged other outlets to experiment further. This is the core story that emerges from our map and to understand it, we explore a number of related topics that we believe the media field must grapple with if we are to address the challenges facing our communities:
The Public as Publishers
Through technology, the financial barriers to entry into the media landscape have come down, and pathways for two-way communication between content producers and consumers have opened up. Internet technologies have increased the ability of individuals to create and distribute their own content as well as the content of others, fueling new interest and opportunities for civic engagement and increasing the amount and range of information available. At the same time, however, this has increased overall noise and raised new concerns about verification.
The Rapid Adoption of Mobile
Consumer practices and preferences, including an explosion in the use of mobile devices, are changing how news is produced, packaged, and promoted.
Shifting Economic Models for Local News Providers
Local news outlets used to have an overwhelming advantage in attracting and retaining local advertising dollars. This has shifted in the Internet era. Large digital platforms are pulling advertisers and advertising dollars away from local outlets and becoming increasingly adept at personalizing advertising in ways that cement their hold on the marketplace. Mobile technologies also have led to changed advertising and distribution models that are driving a decrease in the level of resources available for local reporting, ultimately reducing the quality and coverage of local topics.
As the traditional advertising-based model of revenue has been dismantled for local news outlets, new sources of financial support have emerged. Individual subscriber/membership models, the backbone of public radio, are becoming an increasingly attractive option for other types of local news outlets, especially new nonprofit outlets. In addition, philanthropic support is becoming an increasing part of the revenue stream for local news via online nonprofit outlets. While government support is primarily used for infrastructure such as physical plants and broadcast equipment, occasionally public broadcasting funds are also used to support specific content including local or regional beats. Taken together, however, these new sources of income are not adding up to replace previous levels of support.
Ongoing Disruption of the Industry Players
Innovative outlets are replacing less nimble players who fail to maintain audiences or seize new opportunities. In this environment, new as well as established organizations find they must evolve rapidly or experience deep decline. In response to these trends, new entrants and incumbents alike are experimenting furiously with new revenue models and only sometimes succeeding; all but the largest face steady erosion of their viability.
Maximizing the Impact of Journalism and Government Transparency
As the quantity, quality, and relevance of local news increases, so does the production of news that exposes corruption. Access to more government data and records, for example, can expose corruption and increase public interest in open data. When this is done in a way that also provides solutions and actions to resolve a problem, public engagement in civic affairs is increased. When this output fails to provide solutions to problems, however, the public becomes more cynical and less engaged.
Partisanship in News Production and Consumption
Audiences are now increasingly able to select news that matches their own biases and beliefs, a behavior encouraged by the ability of large sites and social feeds to target content specific to these interests. In turn, outlets become more polarized and specialized to build and retain their audience base, increasing engagement among hyperpartisan audience members while making more centrist and undecided audiences more cynical about news and politics.
Newsroom Isolation and Community Disengagement
Journalistic practices can sometimes isolate newsrooms. In particular, journalists can appear detached or insensitive to community priorities when seeking a measure of objectivity or asserting independence.
Newsroom diversity, however it is defined – in terms of ethnicity, gender, age, ideology, or other factors – also matters to an outlet’s ability to engage the public. Having a range of perspectives and experiences within any news organization is vital to the generation of new ideas and connection with new sources, but diversity efforts have been a casualty of economic decline in much of professional news media. At the same time, the rise of digital media has created new ways for a wider range of community voices to be heard.
As the diversity of sources, stories, and staff decrease, so do the quantity, quality, and relevance of local journalism. This diminishes the engagement of the public in civic affairs and newsrooms. As the public becomes less engaged with the newsroom, it becomes more isolated, and diversity of sources, stories, and staff continues to dwindle.
Conversely, newsrooms that are more diverse and able to connect with and report on different constituencies increase their engagement with community, which contributes to better reporting, editorial, and accountability practices. These contribute to an increase in the quality and sometimes quantity of information.
New Priorities in Communications Policy
Public interest media and communications policy encompass a variety of issues and structures related to the ability of citizens to communicate with one another, express their own perspectives, access communications technologies and services at a reasonable or even subsidized rate, and protect themselves from libel or slander. Communications policy also regulates many of the actors who provide civic information and spaces for public dialogue, including Internet service providers, the owners of newspapers, radio and television stations, public access media facilities, cable companies, and others. Media and communications policy has a significant influence over the ability of local news ecosystems to support civic information and participation. For example, policy encouraging an open Internet and access to high-speed broadband can further increase the creation and sharing of user-generated content and lay the groundwork for experimentation in local news, while policy supporting local public media can strengthen state and local news media organizations with direct dollars for infrastructure and beats.
Journalism Practice in Transition
Changes in the journalism environment drive new priorities for continuing journalism education. The decline of traditional print and broadcast newsrooms and the rise of both small online newsrooms and even more decentralized citizen reporting via social platforms, has chipped away at the overall level of journalistic professionalism and integrity. Up-and-coming and citizen reporters are learning the trade from scratch, and are not necessarily aware of existing resources and institutions, while reporters trained for print and broadcast are struggling to adapt to the ever-quicker and more porous practices of producing online news. Skills once transferred through informal mentoring and on-the-job training, or through more formalized journalism education are now either missing, or being reconstructed so that they can be applied in a more participatory media environment.
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Mapping to Learn: Applying a Systems Lens to Local Journalism
This week we released a visualization and accompanying narrative that seeks to represent the dynamics facing local news institutions and levels of participation of the public in civic affairs.
Original reporting, informed dialogue, and rigorously argued differences of opinion all support engagement in our democratic processes in communities across the United States. Over the past decade, however, local news outlets have struggled. Audiences and advertisers have gravitated to digital and mobile platforms — and the economics of local news has declined. We are being left with media deserts in locations where coverage once flourished.
At the same time, promising local journalism experiments have cropped up across the country. Foundations and venture capitalists are investing not only in individual outlets, but in tools and models that can cut reporting costs and support civic engagement around breaking topics. How can such promising innovations be seeded widely and cultivated fully? These are the issues that the Democracy Fund’s Engagement Program has been grappling with.
Our Journey
Over the past year, we have consulted dozens of journalists and scholars of media and communications in an ambitious effort to create a map that reveals the many dimensions of local journalism’s disruption.
This process flows from the foundation’s larger commitment to understanding democracy as a complex system. At the core of our process is an extensive process of analysis and graphical mapping of the dynamics facing this space. As Democracy Fund President Joe Goldman explains “a systems map describes the dynamic patterns (or feedback loops) that occur in a system, whether they are vicious or virtuous cycles of behavior and reaction.” It is not, as Joe writes “a network map that describes how different individuals or organizations are connected to one another.”
The process of identifying and vetting such loops has been both long and profoundly iterative. Participants in the initial workshop held in March 2014 sketched some 43 loops representing different dynamics surrounding the failure and success of local news outlets to adequately inform and connect with their communities. Over a series of internal and one-on-one meetings, the Engagement team — Program Associate Paul Waters, Graduate Research Fellow Jessica Mahone, myself, and a dedicated set of fellows and consultants — winnowed the map down to tell a “core story” about key factors and connections.
Like panning for gold, these multiple conversations allowed the team to sift through many different layers of the problem to identify valuable elements. The result is not a picture of the optimal local news environment that we might want, or the debatably better environment we might have once had. Instead, it’s a multi-dimensional model of the intersecting forces that shape the markets, missions, and practices of outlets seeking to provide coverage that can help to drive democratic decisionmaking by both audiences and policymakers around the country.
Where We Are
The current map, which comprises 17 loops, hones in on the powerfully disruptive economic shifts that have unsettled legacy journalism outlets, and the hopeful but still nascent creative efforts to build sustainable digital tools and platforms for reporting and civic dialogue. The map identifies Internet adoption and evolution as the key “input factor” disrupting this system, and pinpoints three key factors central to a healthy local information ecosystem:
- The shift in audience attention;
- The relevance, quality, and quantity of state and local journalism; and
- The engagement of the public in civic affairs.
Several related loops hone in on economic dynamics. Perhaps the most important is the decay in income from advertising as a result of news outlets no longer able to obtain the same rates or deliver the same audience reach they once did. In addition, large digital platforms are more able to capture significant portions of the remaining advertising revenue with increasingly sophisticated targeting technologies. The result these dynamics is that membership and philanthropic support for small to mid-sized news projects is increasingly important as is the role government dollars play in maintaining public broadcasting.
Other factors are at work, however, including the rise of user-generated content, the strength of connections between newsrooms and community members, and the fate of journalism skills in an era of mass newspaper layoffs. The map raises questions such as, can audiences trust reporters to recognize and represent their interests, and uncover corruption without sliding into sensationalism? Will outlets with small slices of the public increase hyper partisanship with narrowly targeted content aimed at reinforcing viewpoints rather than informing?
The map also recognizes the importance of policy decisions around online access and how they have fostered the growth of the Internet over recent decades. All of these dynamics and others are captured in this system map, and each loop is bolstered with research, case studies and both supporting and countervailing evidence.
Overall, we have to recognize that the local public square, which has for decades been sustained by a small number of newspapers, television and radio stations, is in turmoil and though it isn’t clear what will replace what was for decades a stable equilibrium it is very clear that change will be a constant over the upcoming decade.
Looking to the future
Like the dynamics it captures, the map is not static. It is a work in progress, designed to serve as tool for discussion and strategy not just within the foundation, but across the field. With this in mind, the Engagement Program worked with the American Press Institute to convene another room full of news experts, editors and reporters this past October. Many had seen the map more than once in its various iterations; others were “map newbies.” We led the room through each loop—probing for points of confusion or competing interpretations of various factors and connections. For us this was just the first step towards more engagement with communities of experts seeking to better inform and engage the public at the local level in our democracy. Ultimately, we hope this contributes to a stronger shared understanding of the field.
How can you assist?
We recognize that as a relatively small organization we will gain a better understanding of the field by soliciting input from others. We also realize that this is a quickly shifting field and we intend to stay in learning mode as the map evolves. This prompts us to continue to engage with the widest range of people working in the realm of local news and participation: What else does the Democracy Fund need to know or understand to better illuminate the dynamics of local news ecosystems?
If your work relates to local news and participation, we welcome and encourage you to take some time to explore the map and dig into the definitions of the loops, factors, and connections. Help us improve its breadth and accuracy.
Please send us your ideas and feedback by emailing newsmap@democracyfund.org.
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Cranking up the Truth-O-Meter: Giving a boost to Truth in Politics
As PoltiFact’s Angie Holan’s December 2015 op-ed in The New York Times, explains, even in the midst of a campaign season full of falsehoods and misstatements, she sees reason for optimism about the efficacy of fact-checking work:
“Some politicians have responded to fact-checking journalism by vetting their prepared comments more carefully and giving their campaign ads extra scrutiny… Accurate information is becoming more available and easier for voters to find… Today’s TV journalists—anchors like Chuck Todd, Jake Tapper and George Stephanopoulos—have picked up the torch of fact-checking and now grill candidates on issues of accuracy during live interviews… In fact, journalists regularly tell me their media organizations have started highlighting fact-checking in their reporting because so many people click on fact-checking stories after a debate or high-profile news event.”
We do too, and in this context, Democracy Fund is pleased to announce our support (via a grant to The Times Publishing Company) for PolitiFact, an independent, nonpartisan news organization focused on bringing the public the truth in politics. PolitiFact’s staff of independent reporters and editors fact-check statements from the White House, the president, cabinet secretaries, Congress, state legislators, governors, mayors, lobbyists, people who testify before Congress, and anyone else who speaks up in American politics—rating their claims for accuracy on their “Truth-O-Meter.” Every fact-check includes analysis of the claim, an explanation of reasoning, and a list of links to sources. A well established and esteemed fact-checking team now led by Angie Holan, won the Pulitzer Prize for its fact-checking of the presidential election in 2008.
PolitiFact is a division of The Tampa Bay Times, Florida’s largest newspaper, which is published by the Times Publishing Company, which is owned by the Poynter Institute, a 501(c)(3) journalism school in St. Petersburg, Florida. Democracy Fund has previously supported PunditFact, a project that fact-checks talking heads and opinion leaders, through funding from the Poynter Institute. We decided to provide additional dollars because we see this as an invaluable service for democratic accountability. The support we’re providing will allow PolitiFact to grow its franchise, extending factchecking across states during 2016 and subsequently.
PolitiFact has already been expanding its reach across the country, establishing editions in 15 states already (Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin). This growth is great to see, and we hope it will continue.
Our Commitment to Editorial Independence
As part of this announcement of our support, we want to underscore that the Democracy Fund will not have any knowledge of the claims being checked, nor will we have any discussions with PolitiFact on editorial questions whatsoever.
Prior to finalizing the grant, we committed that Democracy Fund staff will not discuss with PolitiFact staff the editorial content of factchecks, nor will we discuss ratings of future factchecks, or future subjects of factchecks. At the same time, PolitiFact committed not to share any factchecks it is researching with Democracy Fund staff prior to publication.
We wanted to share this commitment as a part of our ongoing efforts to be transparent about the work we do and our approach. Editorial independence has always been crucial to journalism and democracy and as the field enters a new era where it seems likely funding will come from a range of sources, we need to ensure that it is not compromised.
The Democracy Fund is committed to fighting deception and disinformation that prevents voters from making informed decisions at the ballot box. PolitiFact and its state-level affiliates will hold individuals and organizations accountable for the exaggerations and falsehoods that are often found in political speech. We expect their work will continue to demonstrate the valuable role fact-checking can play in holding politicians, pundits and policy advocates accountable, and will influence other media organizations to adopt similar practices, and we are delighted to support them in this endeavor.
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New Research Reveals Stark Local News Gaps in New Jersey
At the Democracy Fund, we seek to foster a more informed and active electorate by providing voters with the information, opportunities for engagement, and skills they need to make informed choices. A particular focus of this work has been to build up journalism at the local and state house level, and we have supported the Institute for Nonprofit News nationally and more recently the News Voices Project in New Jersey with an objective strengthening news provision at the local level. The latter with the specific objective of collaborations between newsrooms and communities.
We also realize we don’t yet have a full picture of the state of journalism at the city level and that motivated us to support the new research published today by Rutgers University regarding the level of news provision in three New Jersey Communities. From the release:
In “Assessing the Health of Local Journalism Ecosystems: A Comparative Analysis of Three New Jersey Communities,” researchers examined the journalistic infrastructure, output, and performance in the New Jersey communities of Newark, New Brunswick, and Morristown.
The research, supported by the Democracy Fund, the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, and Knight Foundation, indicates substantial differences in the volume and quality of reporting. Low income communities saw less coverage than higher income neighboring cities.
In Newark, with a population of 277,000 and a per capita income of $13,009, there are only 0.55 sources of news for every 10,000 people. Whereas, in New Brunswick, with a population of 55,000 and a per capita income of $16,395, there are 2.18 news sources for every 10,000 people. But the differences are most stark in comparison to Morristown, which has a population of 18,000 and a per capita income of $37,573 but 6.11 news sources for every 10,000 people.
These pronounced differences in the availability of sources of journalism were then reflected in how much journalism was produced within these three communities:
- Morristown residents received 23 times more news stories and 20 times more social media posts from their local journalism sources per 10,000 capita than Newark residents, and 2.5 times more news stories and 3.4 times more social media posts per 10,000 capita than New Brunswick residents.
- New Brunswick residents received 9.3 times more news stories and six times more social media posts per 10,000 capita than Newark residents.
Similar differences across the three communities often persisted when the researchers focused on aspects of the quality of local journalism, such as the extent to which the stories were original (rather than repostings or links to other sources); the extent to which the stories were about the local community; and the extent to which the stories addressed critical information needs, such as education, health, and civic and political life.
Professor Phillip Napoli, the lead author, said, “If journalism and access to information are pillars of self government then these findings suggest those tools of democracy are not being distributed evenly, and that should be cause for concern.”
A study of three communities is not conclusive, and over time we hope that this report will be supplemented by an analysis of a larger number of communities and complemented by others that use complementary research methodologies. That said, we believe the results published today will aid us as we consider how we approach our work and help inform the work of others. As we think further about this we welcome comments below from journalists and others who are at the coalface at this transitional moment.
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Introducing the News Voices New Jersey Project
“What happens to our communities when quality journalism diminishes or disappears altogether?” The News Voices: Free Press New Jersey project, supported by the Democracy Fund and the Dodge Foundation, seeks to address this question through “a bold effort to build meaningful relationships between local newsrooms and their communities [and] to create a collaborative network of people invested in the future of local news toward vibrant inclusive communities.” This innovative project is led by Fiona Morgan and Mike Rispoli of Free Press.
News Voices will build a network of residents, civic leaders, journalists, and academics to advocate for quality and sustainable journalism. Essentially, the project harnesses the people power of New Jersey “to foster better local journalism.”
The News Voices project proposes that the current landscape of journalism requires focusing on saving traditional outlets including newspapers while adopting new technology. However, this initiative focuses on the purposes of journalism: holding the powerful accountable, informing audiences, and acting in the public interest.
Free Press has chosen to pilot this program in New Jersey because the state’s close proximity to the New York and Philadelphia media markets. As Free Press points out “If New Jersey were its own market, it would be the fourth largest in the country.” This proximity has often led to the overshadowing of New Jersey’s local issues within news within outlets based in other states but having audiences in New Jersey. As startup journalism communities within the state grow they continue to focus on nonprofit and for-profit online new organizations and experimenting social media platforms. News Voices New Jersey “want[s] to bring together people from a variety of backgrounds, with shared interests, to make our communities and local news institutions stronger.”
We at the Democracy Fund continue to be interested in bringing newsrooms and a renewed focus on local communities into the public dialogue. News Voices is also looking for additional voices from journalists and the community to highlight topical issues for local journalism. You can join the News Voices: New Jersey project by emailing Mike Rispoli at mrispoli@freepress.net.
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Congratulations to the Online News Association!
We’re pleased to learn the Online News Association has received an American Society of Association Executives (ASAE) Power of A Silver Star Award in recognition of The Challenge Fund’s contributions to the local, national, and global communities.
“Their story exemplifies how associations make a difference every day – not just to the industry or profession they represent, but to society at large,” said High “Mac” Cannon, MPA, CAE, Executive Director of ACEC of Metropolitan Washington and chair of the Judging Committee.
The Challenge Fund, a project funded by the Democracy Fund in collaboration with the Excellence and Ethics in Journalism Foundation, the McCormick Foundation, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, and the Rita Allen Foundation is designed to innovate both local news reporting and journalism student training.* Each year, faculty in college and university journalism programs around the country submit projects to incorporate student journalists into the process of local reporting. Winners receive a $35,000 mini-grant to implement their project.
The impact of the program is two-fold. First, the Challenge Fund helps increase the number of reporters working on local news stories. Second, the fund promotes the innovation in local news by emphasizing projects that incorporate new technology, techniques, partnerships, and approaches in reporting.
Among first year winners, projects have tackled the impact of rising sea levels on south Florida communities, built a collaborative around digital investigative journalism in Georgia, and produced investigative stories on mold in New York City Housing Authority tenements. This year’s winners are fact checking claims made about the African-American community, using listening stations to gather information from members of traumatized communities, and using virtual reality to tell the stories of marginalized youth.
The Democracy Fund is proud to support the work of ONA and congratulate them for their recognition by ASAE.
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Guest Post: New API Research shows Growth of Fact Checking and Partisan Challenges
This is cross-posted from the American Press Institute. View a full version with charts here and read more about the Democracy Fund’s support of fact checking here.
The amount of fact-checking journalism produced in the United States is increasing dramatically, and while there are limits to its persuasiveness, it is a measurably effective tool for correcting political misinformation among voters, according to new scholarly research conducted for the American Press Institute and released today.
The number of fact-check stories in the U.S. news media increased by more than 300 percent from 2008 to 2012, one of the studies found. That accelerates the growth in fact-checking journalism found in the prior national election cycle.
Fact-checking journalism also succeeds in increasing voter knowledge, according to controlled experiments with audiences.
“Fact-checking journalism is growing rapidly but is still relatively rare and heavily concentrated among outlets with dedicated fact checkers,” said the University of Exeter’s Jason Reifler, one of the scholars engaged in the research.
The three studies released today, conducted by scholars at six universities, build on existing research and constitute the most comprehensive effort to date examining the work of journalists to police political rhetoric.
Among some of the other findings:
- More than eight in 10 Americans have a favorable view of political fact-checking.
- Fact-checking is equally persuasive whether or not it uses a “rating scale” to summarize its findings.
- Fact-checks of inaccurate statements are more persuasive when the consumer and the politician belong to the same political party.
- Democrats, in general, have a more favorable view of and are somewhat more persuaded by fact-checking journalism than Republicans.
The results released today are part of a series commissioned through API’s Fact-Checking Project, an initiative to examine and improve fact-checking in journalism. The program is funded by the Democracy Fund, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the Rita Allen Foundation.
The Growth of Fact-Checking
By several measures fact-checking is growing. In the study of the frequency of fact-checking — either original fact-checks or stories about such work — the number of fact-checking stories increased by more than 50 percent from 2004 to 2008 and by more than 300 percent from 2008 to 2012. The growth occurred mostly at 11 newspapers that partnered with PolitiFact, one of the country’s most prominent fact-checking organizations, but the number of such stories also more than doubled between 2008 and 2012 at media outlets unaffiliated with PolitiFact.
The findings on the growth in fact-checking are reinforced by the Reporters’ Lab at Duke University, which found that the number of fully active fact-checking organizations in North America increased from 15 in April 2014 to 22 in January 2015.
The API study, authored by Lucas Graves at the University of Wisconsin, Brendan Nyhan at Dartmouth College and Reifler, also explored what conditions encourage more fact-checking journalism to occur. The researchers found that reporters who are reminded of fact-checking’s journalistic value produce significantly more fact-checking stories than those who are not reminded. Yet, the study found, reminding reporters that readers like fact-checking did not have a statistically significant effect.
Fact-checking and consumer knowledge
A second study, also by Nyhan and Reifler, found that more than eight in 10 Americans have a favorable view of political fact-checking journalism.
But there are some partisan differences in public perceptions of the practice: Republicans don’t view fact-checking journalism as favorably as Democrats do, especially among people with high levels of political knowledge.
Americans also appear to learn from fact-checks written by journalists, the study found. Knowledge of relevant facts increased by 11 percentage points among people who were randomly exposed to a series of fact-checks during the 2014 election, compared to a control group. In general, the study found, fact-checks are more effective among people who already have higher levels of political knowledge.
The study is the first randomized controlled trial estimating the effects of exposure to fact checking over time.
‘Pants on Fire’ Optional
Another of the studies examined the effectiveness of “rating scales” in fact-checking journalism. This research, conducted by Michelle A. Amazeen of Rider University, with Graves, Emily Thorson of George Washington University, and Ashley Muddiman of the University of Wyoming, found that a fact check is an effective tool for correcting political misinformation, whether or not it employs a “rating scale.” When given a choice, however, readers selected a fact check with a rating scale.
Such ratings are used by fact-checking organizations such the Washington Post’s Fact Checker, which uses a Pinocchio scale, and PolitiFact, whose Truth-O-Meter includes the well-known “Pants on Fire” rating.
Fact-checks of inaccurate statements are less persuasive when the reader and politician belongs to opposite political parties, the researchers found. These readers tend to think the opposing party politician’s statement was false, even before they read the correction. For this reason, political fact-checking may be of particular benefit during primary contests, according to the authors, although fact-checking currently is more likely to occur during general election cycles than in primaries.
The study also found that a non-political correction — in this case, regarding a statement made by a breakfast cereal company official — was more effective when a rating scale was added to the text.
The Future of Fact-Checking
Overall the studies suggest that fact-checking is achieving its core aim: countering the spread of political misinformation. And the public largely appreciates this work.
“The results suggest that corrections of misinformation do help people to more accurately understand the world around them,” Amazeen said.
Reifler added, “In short, people like fact-checking and it appears to help them become better informed.”
Read the full studies here:
Estimating Fact-Checking’s Effects
The Effectiveness of Rating Scales
In the coming weeks, API will publish more findings from its fact-checking research, including the prevalence of misinformation on Twitter and a report by journalist Mark Stencel examining the impact of fact-checking on the behavior of those in the political arena.
Blog
Funder Collaboration Launches $3 Million Competition to Better Inform and Engage Voters
UPDATE: The NewsChallenge is open until 5 pm eastern on March 19th. Apply now!
Today, the Democracy Fund joined with the Knight Foundation, Hewlett Foundation, and Rita Allen Foundation to launch a $3-million challenge to identify how can we better inform voters and increase civic participation before, during, and after elections.
The Knight Foundation’s blog elaborates on this unique Knight News Challenge on elections: “We are looking for innovative ideas ranging from new ways that news media and others can inform voters, to making access to essential registration and polling information available, to making voting easy, efficient and fair, to converting election participation into longer-term civic engagement, on the local, state or national level.”
For the Democracy Fund, this partnership represents a unique opportunity to work with leading peer funders to support new and promising ideas from people across the media, technology, and election administration fields. We hope to see ideas and collaborations from civic technologists, state and local election officials, academics, students, startups, nonprofits, governments, and individuals.
The Democracy Fund has committed up to $250,000 to the competition, and we’re looking forward to working with our partners to inspire creativity, reach out to a wide array of potential applicants, and help ensure the success of the winning entrants.
The News Challenge will open on February 25, 2015. More information is available on the News Challenge’s web site.