Meet the writers I believe journalism is the most important task in a democracy. — Wendell Cochran Wendell Cochran is the director of the journalism division in the School of Communication at American University in Washington, D.C. He has been involved in journalism for more than 40 years and has been teaching about and practicing online journalism since 1992. One of his major projects is the American University Campaign Finance Web Site. The site, continuously updated since 1996, is Read more [...]

Why Interview? Interview Types Interview Tools Interview Ethics Test Your ‘IQ’ Resources Recording interviews: Legal issues Taping a phone interview is a great way to make sure you quote your source accurately. Taping also helps you keep the contents of an interview fresh in your mind and it can provide audio clips for your Web site. First, be sure your batteries are fresh. Second, if you’re going to tape, it’s crucial that you know the legal ramifications of recording Read more [...]

Why Interview? Interview Types Interview Tools Interview Ethics Test Your ‘IQ’ Resources Doing Research for Interviews Whether you are writing about the school board, the county’s plans for a new skate park or police efforts to stop car break-ins, do some research before you do interviews or attend a meeting. Like you, your interviewee is busy. You want to be able to understand what’s being said without having to ask constantly for clarification or, worse, just to guess. Where Read more [...]

Why Interview? Interview Types Interview Tools Interview Ethics Test Your ‘IQ’ Resources How to Edit Quotes Many citizen journalists say that it took them time to learn that with quotes, more is often less. Sometimes you have a great interview with an eloquent speaker, and you are tempted to present what they say all in quotes. Or maybe you’re afraid you’ll take an interviewee’s words out of context if you paraphrase or edit their quotes. But reading long quotes Read more [...]

The Idea When community-supported KRFP went on the air in October 2004, organizers wanted the fledgling radio station in Moscow, Idaho, to emphasize local news coverage and produce an evening newscast. With no budget for a reporting staff, the station instead opened its airwaves to citizen journalists. “So far, it’s working,” said Leigh Robartes, a former Northwest Public Radio reporter who serves as the station’s news director. “As far as producing the show on a daily basis, Read more [...]

The Idea After studying the successes and failures of the civic journalism movement in the 1990s, UW-Madison journalism professor Lewis A. Friedland wanted to create a community-led news model that would encourage civic engagement and raise public awareness, without having to rely on the budgets or whims of the mainstream media. “One thing it would take would be some sort of organization that would be larger than the sum of its media partners, where citizens had some very formal convening role, Read more [...]

The Idea In the months before the 2004 general elections, community activist Griff Wigley, co-founder of the citizen-driven news site Northfield.org., organized training seminars to encourage civic leaders to blog about community issues. Wigley saw the leadership blogs as a new line of communication between elected or municipal leaders and their communities, one that could offer citizens a window into how government operates and how decisions are made. The daily activities of any civic leader Read more [...]

The Idea When he left daily journalism after working as a reporter for the New York Times and a bureau chief for Bloomberg News Service, Doug McGill wanted to find a way to share the best lessons of the newsroom with regular people and community activists using the Internet to create their own brand of civic journalism. What McGill launched was Largemouth, a six-week journalism tutorial that covers topics ranging from ethics in reporting to the rise of citizen reporting. Stories produced by Read more [...]

The Idea Web-based publishing was in its infancy, and the term citizen journalism had yet to be coined when the MIT Media Lab and a group of volunteers at the Milano Senior Center in Melrose, Mass., launched a monthly online publication in 1996 that still serves as a model for citizen-driven reporting. Dubbed the SilverStringers, the seniors in Massachusetts began publishing the monthly Melrose Mirror after a series of journalism lessons from former Boston Globe editor Jack Driscoll, now Read more [...]

The Idea Since 1985, Appalshop has operated a community radio station, WMMT 88.7 FM, which relies heavily on volunteers to produce programs and content for listeners across Eastern Kentucky. Project Manager Mia Frederick said the Community Correspondents Corps grew out of a desire to have more local news programming on air and to encourage comprehensive coverage in a region that frequently is the subject of negative media portrayals. Launched in fall of 2006 with a grant from J-Lab’s New Read more [...]