Workshop Report: Gary Kebbel - Danielle Villoch, Day Two
The Information Needs of YOUR Community
Thursday, Feb. 21, 2008
Anastasia Room
Leader: Gary Kebbel, John
S. and James L. Knight Foundation
Scribe: Danielle Villoch,
John S. and James L. Knight Foundation
In
the second breakout session, we focused on tangible solutions to the
information needs of specific communities. Gary Kebbel, our facilitator,
started the session by asking, “What can we do in individual communities?” We
began by exploring the feasibility of creating partnerships with local newspapers.
While some initially doubted the value of partnering with newspapers given the
decline in readership of print editions, Billie Blair of the Santa Fe Community
Foundation argued that it still makes sense to work with locally owned,
community newspapers citing that they are still best at identifying issues
facing a community and opportunities to solve those issues.
Partnering
with newspapers, however, does bring up the issue of content control. We came
to the conclusion that if community foundations worked with traditional news
sources, such as newspapers and public radio, they could fund forums, but not
play a role in content selection and development. Community foundations can
invest in forums, hope for the best and then get the best without compromising
journalistic principles. Lorenzo Lebrija, Knight Foundation’s Miami Program Director,
added that a community foundation’s partner doesn’t have to be the “big
kahuna.” He suggested that community foundations look to community papers
first, after which main newspapers will see that they are not pushing their own
agenda and are really trying to get information to citizens.
Lebrija
followed this point by bringing up the ancillary channels public radio stations
would inherit after the switch to HD radio. What goes on those channels? Can
they be used for community directed information? Even though this transition
lies several years down the road community foundations could start approaching
radio stations now with ideas for programming. Together with Linda Carter from
the Community Foundation of Broward, he also suggested tapping into the vast
number of retirees in Broward County and putting together a core of former
journalists to look at issues that the paper isn’t looking at, be it public
policy or education. He said, “This would provide information to communities
at a low cost from experienced journalists, while at same time providing an
outlet for them to give back to their community in a way they’re used to
doing.”
Participants
shortly deliberated about where the result of these ventures should be
published and then quickly turned to discussing how to use digital media.
Questions ranged from how is a community foundation held responsible for
something libelous or controversial a blogger they funded says to what is the
best way to aggregate an onslaught on information online. Someone suggested
that community foundations invest in internet savvy interns to create networks
of grantees or people within communities sharing similar interests on Facebook,
like the Grand Rapids Community Foundation has done. Another suggestion was
for the community to invest in aggregating information citizens couldn’t find
elsewhere. If this tapped into an added value that the community was willing
to pay for, it would claim a niche market and be sustainable. Community
foundations could reach youth by getting budding high school journalists to
blog about community issues. Finally, instead of focusing on how to get people
information, community foundations could teach citizens how to sift through the
information out there, much like news literacy courses currently being taught
to freshman at many colleges.
While
many workable solutions were brought into discussion during the breakout, the
takeaway message was not to disregard traditional mediums. Newspapers are
changing their thinking from just thinking of themselves as newspapers to
thinking of themselves as news organizations that happen to distribute
information via different mediums. If so, efforts to partner with them are
worthwhile and community foundations are not just propping up the print
distribution of information. Newspapers have been in this market and are
finally realizing they can’t shut themselves out from the digital world and are
working together with digital media to bring people information and provide
them with places to engage with the community.
Useful links discussed in the
session:
aggregates place blogs and allows you to search all of them to find one close
to you- www.Meetup.com:
organize groups online to meet in real life
