Tomorrow afternoon, Trib columnist Clarence Page will visit Marquette Elementary to talk with middle schoolers about the news business and why news is important. About 150 6th-graders have been gearing up for the visit by studying a curriculum developed by the News Literacy Project. Last week Chicago coordinator Peter Adams told me about one of their activities--exploring the "information neighborhoods" in a newspaper--page one, metro, sports, advertising inserts. "We go through and talk about who produced this, what its goal is, things like that," to better understand the relationship between advertisers, reporters and the paper as a whole.
Last Friday students examined digital and viral media hoaxes to learn more about what a reliable source is. I know firsthand the worth of activities like this. Back in 2006, my neighbor Daniel, then 12 years old, stopped me on the street and said, "Mark Ecko tagged Air Force One."
"What?" I responded, shocked.
"Yeah, he tagged it. It's on You Tube," Daniel told me. So we went in my house and watched the video. (You can see it here.) It was so well done it had me going for a minute. Then we looked for reliable news stories about his feat and quickly discovered it was a very clever fake--he rented a Boeing jet and painted it to look like Air Force One. According to Ecko's own website, the fake was so good it had the military double-checking whether anyone had been on the runway to shoot it.
If people like me, who've worked in news, and even the Pentagon are doing double-takes at a video hoax, how is a 12-year-old supposed to know it's not true? That's what the News Literacy Project hopes to teach--the skills to separate the fact from the fiction, opinion and advertising that dominate the media landscape, especially in new media. It's great work, and more Chicago schools are looking to get on board in 2010. For more about the News LIteracy Project and tomorrow's event, check out this article on the LISC/Chicago website.
Showing posts with label News. Show all posts
Showing posts with label News. Show all posts
Monday, October 19, 2009
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Are Volunteers Enough to Cover the 'Hoods?
Community Beat got some good press today from Mike Doyle at ChicagoSphere, the new blog-about-blogs at the Trib's just-launched Chicago Now web site. "Community Beat has covered topics you might not find on other community news sites or local blogs," Doyle said, calling it a "great effort." Well, thanks.
Doyle then offers a spirited defense of citizen journalism, which I had "rejected" as "unsustainable and unprofessional" in an email exchange with him. I didn't mean any offense. I just don't think volunteerism is an adequate replacement for professional news gathering, editing and distribution, and it certainly isn't happening on the scale needed to keep communities and cities (and nations) healthy.
Case in point: The CTA on Wednesday released its Screen 3 report on the Red Line Extension Alternatives Analysis Study, which has been analyzing options for high-capacity transit service south of 95th Street. Guess what? After much public input, the CTA recommends a rail extension that snakes west on I-57 and then south along the Union Pacific Railroad through Roseland and all the way to Altgeld Gardens at 130th Street.
You didn't see that in the newspapers? Neither did I. With their staffs gutted, there aren't enough reporters to send to meetings, and I guess those who are left don't have time to check the CTA web site, which is where I found a detailed presentation about the route selection. All I found when searching Google News was a short Sun-Times story saying that a meeting was taking place again tonight (but not telling the news), and a WBEZ piece that at least mentioned the preferred route.
We can't depend on volunteers to provide this type of information, though it would be nice. But community organizations can play a big role here: keeping track of what's happening and sharing it with their residents and neighbors. We've seen it working very well among different New Communities Program lead agencies (LSNA, GAGDC, NWSCDC, TRP) and there's no reason that many more can't get into the game.
Doyle then offers a spirited defense of citizen journalism, which I had "rejected" as "unsustainable and unprofessional" in an email exchange with him. I didn't mean any offense. I just don't think volunteerism is an adequate replacement for professional news gathering, editing and distribution, and it certainly isn't happening on the scale needed to keep communities and cities (and nations) healthy.
Case in point: The CTA on Wednesday released its Screen 3 report on the Red Line Extension Alternatives Analysis Study, which has been analyzing options for high-capacity transit service south of 95th Street. Guess what? After much public input, the CTA recommends a rail extension that snakes west on I-57 and then south along the Union Pacific Railroad through Roseland and all the way to Altgeld Gardens at 130th Street.You didn't see that in the newspapers? Neither did I. With their staffs gutted, there aren't enough reporters to send to meetings, and I guess those who are left don't have time to check the CTA web site, which is where I found a detailed presentation about the route selection. All I found when searching Google News was a short Sun-Times story saying that a meeting was taking place again tonight (but not telling the news), and a WBEZ piece that at least mentioned the preferred route.
We can't depend on volunteers to provide this type of information, though it would be nice. But community organizations can play a big role here: keeping track of what's happening and sharing it with their residents and neighbors. We've seen it working very well among different New Communities Program lead agencies (LSNA, GAGDC, NWSCDC, TRP) and there's no reason that many more can't get into the game.
Monday, March 30, 2009
FDIC's Sheila Bair was here. Wasn't she?
FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair, who has emerged as a national hero in the fight against foreclosures and predatory lending, was in Chicago last week (3/26) to speak at the annual awards dinner of Neighborhood Housing Services of Chicago.
Wasn't she?
You're excused, dear reader, for not knowing, because there was zero (none, nada, zilch, butkas) coverage in the local daily prints.Thank you, Bob Roberts of WBBM-AM Newsradio78, for filing a little something.
Anyhow, my point is, it's time we community development wonks, activists and fellow-travelers had some kind of local news service that both aggregates and selectively reports what's going on in, and done to, the neighborhoods.
At least that's what brass are thinking at LISC/Chicago, and slowly but surely I'm coming around to their view. I work part time there as a freelancer and consultant to the New Communities Program (NCP), and at first, when executive director Andy Mooney proposed a Chicago Neighborhood News Bureau (CNNB) I gave him an eye-roll that would have made my 17-year-old daughter proud.
I'm a practical, get-it-done kinda guy who's been in enough never-ending non-profit meetings to know all things are possible ... to those who don't have to do them. Seemed like a lot of work. Seemed like running a news desk that covers 77 community areas--or even the 16 in NCP-- would require the full-time effort of at least one seasoned journalist, maybe even 2 or 3 if you wanted to do it right with lots of original reporting and high value-added content.
I still feel that way. Only now, after seeing more and more of my former Chi Trib colleagues getting axed or taking buyouts, after seeing the Sun-Times slimmed to a shadow of its former self, I'm thinking that if neighborhoods want coverage of their issues they'll need to do it themselves. And the best way to do it may well be some kind of Web-based clearing house managed by a capable journalist who knows how to separate wheat from chaff, not to mention self-serving PR from genuine news. And no, I don't want that center desk "green eye-shade" job. Done that.
LISC/Chicago is already half-way there--thanks to the generosity and experimental verve of the MacArthur Foundation--with NCP's team of 5 or 6 part-time journalists, called scribes, who write, shoot and video-produce for the newcommunities.org site. Maybe the Community Media Workshop, a solid outfit that knows this turf, should also play a role in CNNB. And there are communicators at several of our kindred non-profits (NHS, CIC, NTIC, CNT, ETC.) who are more than capable of generating usable, reasonably unbiased stuff.
Point is, Chicago could use a community development news site ... and the production of same is well within our ken ... especially if we had a little financial support. We need a site, moreover, where we can get a bit more technical, where both writer and reader will know the difference between an RFP and an RFQ, or that a TIF district isn't someplace you go to have a fight (Or is it?)
Back to Sheila Bair: I didn't go (you don't want to know why not) but my spies said she praised NHS and promised the FDIC will be a partner in the fight to stem foreclosures, stabilize neighborhoods and make life harder for predatory lenders.
"We're going to get back on track and get back to expanded home ownership for people with mortgages they can afford," Bair said, "and we'll have homes that will serve as a source of wealth accumulation."
Not exactly stop-the-presses stuff, but I'm thinking if we had a CNNB reporter there he or she might have primed the pump and got her going on, well, who knows? Also last week, Bair was named a 2009 recipient of the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award for her early--and widely ignored--warnings about the sub-prime mess.
NHS gave her an award, too, the Gale Cincotta Neighborhood Partnership Award, and nine local activists received Neighborhood Leadership Awards. Check out the local winners at: http://nhschicago.org/content/page.php?cat_id=0&content_id=94
Other thoughts on creation of a CNNB are warmly invited.
Wasn't she?
You're excused, dear reader, for not knowing, because there was zero (none, nada, zilch, butkas) coverage in the local daily prints.Thank you, Bob Roberts of WBBM-AM Newsradio78, for filing a little something.
Anyhow, my point is, it's time we community development wonks, activists and fellow-travelers had some kind of local news service that both aggregates and selectively reports what's going on in, and done to, the neighborhoods.
At least that's what brass are thinking at LISC/Chicago, and slowly but surely I'm coming around to their view. I work part time there as a freelancer and consultant to the New Communities Program (NCP), and at first, when executive director Andy Mooney proposed a Chicago Neighborhood News Bureau (CNNB) I gave him an eye-roll that would have made my 17-year-old daughter proud.
I'm a practical, get-it-done kinda guy who's been in enough never-ending non-profit meetings to know all things are possible ... to those who don't have to do them. Seemed like a lot of work. Seemed like running a news desk that covers 77 community areas--or even the 16 in NCP-- would require the full-time effort of at least one seasoned journalist, maybe even 2 or 3 if you wanted to do it right with lots of original reporting and high value-added content.
I still feel that way. Only now, after seeing more and more of my former Chi Trib colleagues getting axed or taking buyouts, after seeing the Sun-Times slimmed to a shadow of its former self, I'm thinking that if neighborhoods want coverage of their issues they'll need to do it themselves. And the best way to do it may well be some kind of Web-based clearing house managed by a capable journalist who knows how to separate wheat from chaff, not to mention self-serving PR from genuine news. And no, I don't want that center desk "green eye-shade" job. Done that.
LISC/Chicago is already half-way there--thanks to the generosity and experimental verve of the MacArthur Foundation--with NCP's team of 5 or 6 part-time journalists, called scribes, who write, shoot and video-produce for the newcommunities.org site. Maybe the Community Media Workshop, a solid outfit that knows this turf, should also play a role in CNNB. And there are communicators at several of our kindred non-profits (NHS, CIC, NTIC, CNT, ETC.) who are more than capable of generating usable, reasonably unbiased stuff.
Point is, Chicago could use a community development news site ... and the production of same is well within our ken ... especially if we had a little financial support. We need a site, moreover, where we can get a bit more technical, where both writer and reader will know the difference between an RFP and an RFQ, or that a TIF district isn't someplace you go to have a fight (Or is it?)
Back to Sheila Bair: I didn't go (you don't want to know why not) but my spies said she praised NHS and promised the FDIC will be a partner in the fight to stem foreclosures, stabilize neighborhoods and make life harder for predatory lenders.
"We're going to get back on track and get back to expanded home ownership for people with mortgages they can afford," Bair said, "and we'll have homes that will serve as a source of wealth accumulation."
Not exactly stop-the-presses stuff, but I'm thinking if we had a CNNB reporter there he or she might have primed the pump and got her going on, well, who knows? Also last week, Bair was named a 2009 recipient of the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award for her early--and widely ignored--warnings about the sub-prime mess.
NHS gave her an award, too, the Gale Cincotta Neighborhood Partnership Award, and nine local activists received Neighborhood Leadership Awards. Check out the local winners at: http://nhschicago.org/content/page.php?cat_id=0&content_id=94
Other thoughts on creation of a CNNB are warmly invited.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Aldi Syndrome: The Mixed-Income Conundrum
It's not often that one gets to comment on mixed-income neighborhoods and the future of journalism in the same breath, but this is one of those days so I'm taking advantage of it.
One of the final editions of the News-Star newspaper came through my Rogers Park mail slot today and I got a big kick out of the story about the Aldi grocery chain trying to "sneak one of its stores"
into a new development in Edgewater. It seems that some neighbors and 49th Ward Ald. Joe Moore would prefer something more upscale.
I laughed out loud because the same scenario has played out in West Haven, where the Near West Side Community Development Corp. has taken heat for trying to bring Aldi into the planned shopping center at Madison and Western. Some vocal neighbors there would prefer a Whole Foods, but even in well-off neighborhoods that store is known as "Whole Paycheck" because of its high prices. In Edgewater, the preferred alternative was Trader Joes, but the developer just couldn't swing that deal.
News-Star knows a good editorial topic when it falls into its lap.
In an editorial titled "Give Aldi's a chance," the editors wrote that "Our lakefront neighborhoods are changing, and with these changes come a delicate balancing act. Residents often cite racial and socioeconomic diversity as what they love most about living in Rogers Park, Edgewater and Uptown. . . . So let's stop being snobs and paying lip service to economic diversity, and give Aldi's a chance to thrive in Edgewater."
Now that's good journalism: first the story, which provided well-reported, timely information about the community; then the editorial, which offered a reasoned analysis about the tradeoffs that come with diversity.
The pity of it is that the News-Star won't be the same after March 19. Its most recent owner, Chicago Journal, is laying off its staff and selling the name to Inside Publications, which will fold it into its free paper serving Lincoln Square. That means the already-meager flow of news about neighborhoods will be reduced even further.
The only bright side is that there's plenty of room for new approaches to collecting and distributing news, and we'll keep doing our share with this blog and tools like the Chicago Neighborhood News Bureau.
One of the final editions of the News-Star newspaper came through my Rogers Park mail slot today and I got a big kick out of the story about the Aldi grocery chain trying to "sneak one of its stores"
into a new development in Edgewater. It seems that some neighbors and 49th Ward Ald. Joe Moore would prefer something more upscale.I laughed out loud because the same scenario has played out in West Haven, where the Near West Side Community Development Corp. has taken heat for trying to bring Aldi into the planned shopping center at Madison and Western. Some vocal neighbors there would prefer a Whole Foods, but even in well-off neighborhoods that store is known as "Whole Paycheck" because of its high prices. In Edgewater, the preferred alternative was Trader Joes, but the developer just couldn't swing that deal.
News-Star knows a good editorial topic when it falls into its lap.
In an editorial titled "Give Aldi's a chance," the editors wrote that "Our lakefront neighborhoods are changing, and with these changes come a delicate balancing act. Residents often cite racial and socioeconomic diversity as what they love most about living in Rogers Park, Edgewater and Uptown. . . . So let's stop being snobs and paying lip service to economic diversity, and give Aldi's a chance to thrive in Edgewater."
Now that's good journalism: first the story, which provided well-reported, timely information about the community; then the editorial, which offered a reasoned analysis about the tradeoffs that come with diversity.
The pity of it is that the News-Star won't be the same after March 19. Its most recent owner, Chicago Journal, is laying off its staff and selling the name to Inside Publications, which will fold it into its free paper serving Lincoln Square. That means the already-meager flow of news about neighborhoods will be reduced even further.
The only bright side is that there's plenty of room for new approaches to collecting and distributing news, and we'll keep doing our share with this blog and tools like the Chicago Neighborhood News Bureau.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
More Neighborhood News, All in One Place
It's indisputable that Chicago newspapers aren't doing the job they once did covering neighborhoods. But we're lucky to have a long tradition of alternative journalism here, from the long-running Chicago Reporter and Community Media Workshop's News Tips to web-only vehicles like the Chi-Town Daily News. In the last couple years we've also seen the emergence of "hyper-local" sites by neighborhood development corporations.
It's hard to keep up, even if you use a "feed reader" like Google Reader. That's why the scribe team at LISC/Chicago is developing the Chicago Neighborhood News Bureau, to help collect, edit and distribute news from under-served communities.
We're seeking funding to ramp up the news bureau but to get warmed up we created a Chicago Neighborhood News page that aggregates the feeds from 11 neighborhood sites and eight special-interest or news sites, including, among others, the education journal Catalyst Chicago and Chicago Talks, a news site put out by Columbia College's student journalists.
Please check it out and let us know if it works for you -- or not. And please suggest other sites that might fit our mix of neighborhood types and urban-issues wonks.
http://www.newcommunities.org/news/cnnb.asp
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