Collaborating in a Pandemic: Adapting Local News Infrastructure to Meet Information Needs

ABSTRACT

As media outlets around the globe seek to play a constructive role in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, this study looks at how local news initiatives in the U.S. city of Philadelphia attempted to respond to the information needs of marginalized communities. Using a communication infrastructure theory framework, it draws from focus groups with residents of two neighborhoods—one majority Black and one majority Latinx—as well as participant observation of and interviews with journalists in a city-wide local journalism collaboration and two community-centered projects. Through this it explores how the crisis affects links between local media and organizations, and how having community-centered projects and infrastructure for collaboration facilitated the circulation of information within and between storytelling networks in the region.

KEYWORDS:

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

Acknowledgements

This project would not have been possible without the collaboration of the teams of the Germantown Info Hub, Kensington Voice, and Resolve Philadelphia, as well as the openness of Germantown and Kensington community members.

Disclosure Statement

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

Notes

1 See Pew Research Center: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/07/02/local-news-is-playing-an-important-role-for-americans-during-covid-19-outbreak/.

2 Examples include the work of organizations such as El Timpano (https://www.eltimpano.org/), City Bureau (https://www.citybureau.org/), and Free Press News Voices (https://www.freepress.net/issues/future-journalism/local-journalism/about-news-voices).

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

4 These outlets include 10 online only outlets, 7 print, 7 radio, and 1 television station: AL DIA News, Billy Penn, DosPuntos, ecoWURD, FunTimes, Generocity, Green Philly, Kensington Voice, Metro Philadelphia, NBC10/Telemundo62, Next City, One Step Away, The Philadelphia Citizen, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Philadelphia Public School Notebook, Philadelphia Gay News, Philadelphia Magazine, Philatinos Radio, PhillyCAM, Philly Weekly, PlanPhilly, Technical.ly, WURD Radio, and WHYY.

5 More background on the Reentry Project can be found in their internal report on their impact on collaborative journalism in Philadelphia and discourse on prisoner reentry issues: https://resolvephilly.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/The-ReEntry-ProjectUpdated.pdf. Also see Konieczna (2020).

6 Retrieved from resolvephilly.org 7/1/20.

7 See: https://www.journalism.org/2020/04/29/about-seven-in-ten-u-s-adults-say-they-need-to-take-breaks-from-covid-19-news/?utm_source=SJN±Newsletters&utm_campaign=bccf322927-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_11_27_06_41_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_7b57f9b709-bccf322927-425306601&mc_cid=bccf322927&mc_eid=b01802a1ec.

8 For more about this rumor: https://www.poynter.org/?ifcn_misinformation=some-countries-are-dumping-covid-19-infected-dead-bodies-in-the-sea-therefore-be-careful-while-consuming-sea-food.

9 For an example of one of the most prominent case reimagining service journalism, see Outlier Media: https://outliermedia.org/.

10 Independence Public Media Foundation.

11 For more information on the vulnerability index: https://socialprogress.blog/2020/04/03/covid-19-vulnerability-mapping-for-the-uss-500-largest-cities/.

12 See: https://www.citybureau.org/notebook/2019/7/17/journalism-is-a-luxury-information-is-a-necessity.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Independence Public Media Foundation.