Report for America, Report about Communities: Local News Capacity and Community Trust

ABSTRACT

This study looks at Report for America’s (RFA) efforts to strengthen the capacity of local news and increase trust from the perspective of two communities: a neighborhood on Chicago’s West Side and a rural county in Eastern Kentucky. Using a communication infrastructure theory framework, we examined RFA’s impact on the local news environment by following 28 residents through two rounds of focus groups, interviewing 15 journalists and RFA staff, and conducting content analysis of local stories from the Chicago Sun-Times and Lexington Herald-Leader. The study illustrates the influence of place and power dynamics in how residents navigate trustworthiness factors. We explore how RFA’s intervention in these two cases has gone some way to offer more complex narratives about communities, but due to a lack of feedback loops, has been limited in its ability to provide coverage for communities.

KEYWORDS:

• Communication infrastructure theory
• engaged journalism
• local news
• community journalism
• Report for America
• trust

Acknowledgements

This project would not have been possible without the collaboration of Steve Bynum and Charles Perry in Chicago, and the openness of research participants including from Report for America, Chicago Sun-Times, Lexington Herald-Leader, and community members in the Austin neighborhood of Chicago, IL and Pikeville, KY.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Andrea D. Wenzel http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6075-7660

Efrat Nechushtai http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8750-6025

Notes

1. See http://www.journalism.org/2016/07/07/trust-and-accuracy/ and https://www.poynter.org/ethics-trust/2018/finally-some-good-news-trust-in-news-is-up-especially-for-local-media/.

2. https://medium.com/trust-media-and-democracy/local-news-is-a-building-block-to-rebuild-trust-fab8752f3659.

3. https://kf-site-production.s3.amazonaws.com/publications/pdfs/000/000/242/original/KnightFoundation_AmericansViews_Client_Report_010917_Final_Updated.pdf.

4. https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/04/25/media-bubble-real-journalism-jobs-east-coast-215048.

5. https://www.cjr.org/innovations/parachute-journalism-newsroom-bureaus.php.

6. See for example: https://www.propublica.org/atpropublica/propublica-local-reporting-network-selects-seven-newsrooms-across-u-s.

7. https://mediadeserts.wordpress.com.

8. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2016/03/22/teach-for-americas-diversity-paradox/?utm_term=.a509b0d03891.

9. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/15/business/media/report-for-america-service.html.

10. https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/pikecountykentucky.

11. https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/ky.

12. https://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=6863173.

13. For a range of critical responses to J.D. Vance’s memoir: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07NBJ6PL2/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1.

14. https://www.cmap.illinois.gov/documents/10180/126764/Austin.pdf.

15. https://mediaengagement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/CME-Chicago-News-Landscape-Report.pdf.

16. “Josh” Focus group, 7/27/18.

17. Names of focus group participants and RFA reporters have been changed.

18. People also frequently mentioned Diane Sawyer’s infamous coverage of Mountain Dew teeth: https://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=6863173.

19. “Linda” Focus group, 7/28/18.

20. Focus group, 7/27/18.

21. “Matt” Focus group, 7/27/18.

22. “Linda” Focus group, 7/28/18.

23. Focus group, 7/28/18.

24. Interview with John Stamper, 7/27/18.

25. https://www.kentucky.com/news/state/article194459549.html.

26. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-crisis-injournalism-has-become-a-crisis-of-democracy/2018/04/11/a908d5fc-2d64-11e8-8688-e053ba58f1e4_story.html?utm_term=.9132aeff02c8.

27. Interview with “Scott”, 7/27/18.

28. Interview with Kevin Grant, 11/10/18.

29. https://www.reportforamerica.org/service-projects/.

30. https://medium.com/the-impact-architects/towards-a-useful-typology-of-engaged-journalism-790c96c4577e.

31. Focus group, 2/9/19, pm.

32. Focus group, 2/9/19, pm.

33. Focus group, 2/9/19, am.

34. “Lee”, Focus group, 8/14/19.

35. Focus group, 8/14/18.

36. Focus group, 8/15/18.

37. Focus group, 8/15/18.

38. Focus group, 8/14/18.

39. Focus group, 8/14/18.

40. Focus group, 8/15/18.

41. “Lee” Focus group, 8/14/18.

42. Interview with “Adrian”, 8/15/18.

43. Interview with Chris Fusco, 8/17/18.

44. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/23/business/media/chicago-sun-times-ownership.html.

45. Interview with “Adrian”, 8/15/18.

46. Interview with “Francisco”, 8/17/18.

47. “Lee” Focus group, 2/16/19 am.

48. Focus group, 8/15/18.

49. Focus group, 2/16/19 am.

50. Interview with “Adrian”, 2/15/19.

51. Focus group, 2/16/19, am.

52. Focus group, 2/16/19, am.

53. Interview with Michael Romain, 8/15/18.

54. https://www.facebook.com/events/241511230087125/.

55. “Ayesha,” Focus group, 2/16/19, pm.

56. Interview with “Adrian” 8/18.

57. Interview with “Adrian” 2/15/19.

58. “Ayesha” Focus group, 2/16/19, pm.

59. Interview with Steve Waldman, 3/18/19.

60. After the funders of our research shared our initial findings in a public report, RFA wrote a letter detailing how they were considering responding to several of the issues raised by our study.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.