Reimagining Local Journalism: A Community-centered Intervention

ABSTRACT

At a moment when many U.S. news organizations are reckoning with their relationships with communities of color and attempting to build relationships of trust, this engaged research project uses a communication infrastructure theory framework to assess the information needs and assets of a majority Black neighborhood that has historically been stigmatized by media coverage. It draws from nine focus groups, as well as diaries and interviews with residents to assess the local storytelling network and explore how residents conceptualize trustworthiness factors of perceived accuracy, perceived motivations, and representation in local media. Through discussions and participant observation over the course of 17 months, it follows the collaborative process of designing and piloting a community-centered journalism project that attempts to strengthen ties between local media and communities. From this, it explores how residents’ ideals for local journalism at times clash with dominant journalism norms and practices regarding objectivity.

KEYWORDS:

• Engaged journalism
• local journalism
• communication infrastructure theory
• community-centered journalism
• engaged research
• objectivity
• solutions journalism
• trust

Acknowledgements

This project would not have been possible without the collaboration of Tow fellows Marc Lamont Hill, Anthony Nadler, and Melissa Valle, and the openness of Germantown Info Hub collaborators and Germantown community members.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 See the Trusting News Project: https://trustingnews.org/

2 See the Reuter’s Institute’s overview of research on trust: https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/what-we-think-we-know-and-what-we-want-know-perspectives-trust-news-changing-world?utm_source=API±Need±to±Know±newsletter&utm_campaign=f1bbe20b79-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_12_04_01_39&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_e3bf78af04-f1bbe20b79-45907295

3 Solutions Journalism Network. https://www.solutionsjournalism.org/who-we-are/mission (accessed December 30, 2020).

4 16 participants were Black, three were white.

5 We always ensured that one of the co-moderators represented the majority demographic of the group (which in Germantown meant a moderator who identified as Black).

6 From July 2018 to March 2019

7 From July 2018 to March 2019

8 Participant D, focus group discussion 7/17/19

9 Participant 2, focus group discussion 3/14/19

10 Participant 1, focus group discussion 3/12/19

11 Participant 3 focus group discussion 3/12/19

12 focus group discussion 3/14/19

13 Participant 4 focus group discussion 3/12/19

14 Participant 2 focus group discussion 3/12/19

15 The GED test provides the equivalency of a high school degree in North America.

16 Participant 1 focus group discussion 3/12/19

17 Focus group discussion 3/12/19

18 Focus group discussion 3/12/19

19 Focus group discussion 3/12/19

20 Participant 3 focus group discussion 3/12/19

21 For more information on Outlier Media, see their website: https://outliermedia.org/about-outlier/

Additional information

Funding

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