Your news needs (and wants), Part 1: How we plan to address them
Our news needs survey aimed to help us inform our editorial strategy going forward. You shared your thoughts, and didn’t hold back.
By Dana Amihere
This is the first of a 2-part post on how we used the information from our online community information needs survey and pre-launch community listening campaign. Below, Part 1 details specific feedback you gave us and how our editorial strategy was informed by it. Your news needs (and wants), Part 2: What we’ll cover, and how we’ll do it outlines our specific editorial strategies and coverage areas.
Since its conception, AfroLA has been grounded in the voices of the communities we serve. Our work is driven by what our audience tells us that they need and want from us as a local news provider. Part of that service is pretty simple: listen. This isn’t exactly a novel idea, but to listen with purpose, intention and attention is harder than it sounds. Not everything folks have to tell you is positive or easy to take in. At times, it was clear that people didn’t trust us, that they were suspicious of our motives as journalists.
But, that’s OK. The primary goal of our listening campaign was for people to open up to us with honest feedback, to be real with us about what they see as working in the news they consume (or choose not to) and how things can be improved.
I’ve visited local businesses — mostly Black-owned shops around South Los Angeles — to talk with folks (masked) face to face. Hanging out at Sip and Sonder on a Saturday morning is how I met Vietnam veteran Walter, who lives in the renovated Dunbar Hotel’s apartments for seniors. We briefly talked about how a digital news product like AfroLA could be accessible to someone like him who uses a flip phone with no internet connection.
Walking my overly friendly German Shepherd mix, Lucy, around my community also proved to be a great way to connect with folks. Sade, whom everyone calls “Mama” and is my neighborhood’s 86-year-old (un)official matriarch, had a lot to say about how the media covers the police. “[Police] disrespect the Black man.”
She recounted when her eldest son, now 65, was a young boy, riding in a car with his father. LAPD pulled them over, and during the stop, an officer threatened to yank him out of the car and beat him with his nightstick. She said that her son’s severe childhood stutter and fear rendered him speechless. The pair were eventually released to leave. Their car was never searched and no citation was given.
What you get as a result of how officers treat Black men, she explained, is angry young Black people who “know they can’t take [their anger] out on the police,” and commit crimes against others and each other instead.
I’ve taken every opportunity to connect with countless strangers in the past year. A few of those conversations have stood out. Joseph, a wheelchair transport assistant at LAX, wanted me to understand that while he did dodge gang life in Compton, that’s not all his hometown is in the first place (despite its reputation to the contrary). It’s a rich, complicated place with unconventional agriculture, traditional farming and farmland and even cowboys many people don’t even know about.
I talked with Robin, an urban planner and environmental activist from Watts, for more than an hour. She described her efforts to conserve a historic tree integral to the area’s tree canopy located in an already “tree poor” part of the city. She contended that this was part of larger climate resilience efforts to combat tree inequity and related environmental consequences.
Back in September, we launched our online community information needs survey. We promoted it on our social media channels, sent emails and text messages, included it in our newsletter. (We accidentally pushed a paid Facebook ad to users across the U.S. instead of just the L.A. region…🤦🏾♀️ C’mon, we all make mistakes, and this one had a fun twist: Comments included the expected racist vitriol and MAGA trolls, but there were also supportive others, like a kind woman from the Midwest, who wished us luck.)
Despite our outreach efforts, we didn’t get the kind of response rate we were hoping for. Only about 40% of people who started the survey actually finished it. (We’ve since made some adjustments to the survey that we hope will make it a more streamlined experience to complete in about 7 minutes.)
We used data from in-person interviews and survey results to inform our editorial strategy going forward. Some aspects will undoubtedly change or evolve, but this is where we are now. As we near the end of 2022 and have our eyes focused on launch next year, we want to share what we learned and how we’ll use that information.
Here’s the TL;DR of where we’re headed:
- Storytelling with data
- Reporting that provides ongoing oversight and holds power to account
- Reporting that goes beyond enumerating existing problems and provides insight into responses to the problems, or lack thereof
- Reporting that humanizes people, especially those in vulnerable or marginalized groups, beyond stereotypes
- Stories that amplify voices from communities of color and marginalized communities
And, the more detailed version:
We asked: “What misconceptions do people have about your community?”
“We are all ghetto and uneducated.”
“That it is a dangerous/bad area with bad people.”
“For my community in terms of youth, we are passive members of our communities.”
“Often seen as criminals, lazy, or just associated with general trouble”
“That my neighborhood is some sort of wasteland commandeered by unhoused people”
“…Crime, poverty, homelessness/housing, and environmental inequality/racism”
“Most people think my community of Inglewood is the ghetto thanks to Mack 10!** Inglewood isn’t up to no good! In terms of my black community, people also think we are uneducated, have unrefined palates, only eat fried foods, and are “ghetto.” They think we are lazy and don’t want better for ourselves. They think we play the race card too often. They think we deserve to not have the best.”
You told us there are some widespread stereotypes in how Black communities are portrayed. And, that you want (and deserve) better.
**All comments are published as they were submitted through the survey. However, a hyperlink was added above for additional context.
We also asked: “How do you think media coverage of your community can be improved?”
“It can be more reflective of the good that happens as well as the bad. Also can truthfully express the needs of the community”
“I honestly never see media coverage in my area unless something dangerous occurred, so media coverage about good things would be nice”
“Showing various positive aspects of being black”
“I wish there was more coverage of the progress of initiatives rather than the launch of them.”
“I think that they should focus more on positive things surrounding our community and not so much on the negative.”
“Covering more stories of color and getting those marginalized voices to speak up about issues directly affecting them. But also sharing smaller community stories.”
What you told us our reporting should look like:
“I think that, among many other things, there needs to be data-driven journalism about the lasting effects of oil extraction throughout LA county. I also think there needs to be a MASSIVE push to humanize the unhoused, especially those who are on the streets for reasons that aren’t strictly economic, i.e. mental health, addiction.”
“More neighborhood solution stories”
“Generally an outside perspective is always interesting but media coverage of a community should also have people within the community reporting or adding insight”
How we’ll address your concerns:
- We’ll try to become embedded with the communities we serve. We won’t just come around when some high-profile tragedy happens.
- “Bad news” won’t dominate our coverage of communities of color, especially Black neighborhoods. We’ll find the hidden stories that deserve to be told and amplify stories of people doing positive things for the community.
- Our coverage of community initiatives will be more comprehensive than what’s out there. The real work begins after Day 1. We want to track the efficacy of programs — who they serve, how they do it, if their practices are equitable and ethical. We want to provide oversight of what’s happening and hold decision makers accountable.
- Community contributors — students and non-journalists from the community — were written into our editorial strategy from the beginning. We’re hoping to have about a third of the content published by our newsroom produced by people from the community.
- We’re piloting a program with students at a local community college, university and a high school to figure out how we can provide them paid freelance opportunities, mentorship and any additional training needed to reach publication-quality work. We currently have five students total working with us and we’re scaling our efforts into a more formalized program so that we can work with more students. (We’re applying for grant funding in January that would allow us to expand the program.)
- We welcome non-journalists — regular people from the community — to help us report and to tell stories of where they live. There are certain stories that they’re better equipped to write anyway, so give them the platform to do so. We pay all of our contributors, regardless of their prior experience. Like with our students, we work alongside them to ensure the pieces we publish meets journalistic standards, but reflects their authentic voice. Their writing may sound more conversational or relaxed, and we’re perfectly OK with that.
We‘ve’ analyzed the survey results and feedback we have collected to date. But, we’re far from done. We’re applying for grant money next year to continue this work with even more robust outreach (we’ll keep going on a more streamlined scale if we don’t get it). And, our news needs survey will remain open indefinitely. Read more about our specific editorial strategies in Your news needs (and wants), Part 2: What we’ll cover, and how we’ll do it.
AfroLA officially launches in early 2023, but we’ve already started producing quality journalism for L.A.’s Black community.
- Explore the archive of AfroLA’s pre-launch stories.
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Dana Amihere is a data journalist, designer and developer. She’s the founder/executive director of AfroLA. She’s committed to solutions reporting that centers racial and social justice, especially through data-driven storytelling.
Previously, Amihere worked in data, interactive design and news apps for KPCC/LAist, The Dallas Morning News, Pew Research Center and The Baltimore Sun. She owns Code Black Media, a digital media and data consultancy. She is a lecturer at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism.
