Stories of Atlantic City publishes with tales of success, overcoming hardship and resilience
We’re thrilled to announce that the first nine articles published today for Stories of Atlantic City, a collaborative journalism project focused on restorative narrative.
The project’s premise was simple: A group of community members scoured Atlantic City looking for untold stories of resiliency in a city that has been battered by bad news for the last decade, and a group of media partners committed to tell those stories.
Early this morning, five media partners in the project published 10 stories and videos — all of which were originally selected and pitched to the journalists by a team of community partners.
Those stories include:
- Press of Atlantic City: When baseball was Atlantic City’s pastime
- Route 40: ‘Best barber in the world’
- Route 40: Where the American dreamers work
- Breaking AC: Growing success from Atlantic City roots
- SJNtv: The ‘sea’ glass is half full
- Stockton University: Mentors guide the next generation in Atlantic City
- Stockton University: After decade, ‘Back Sov’ skatepark wheels hope into Atlantic City
- Stockton University: Taking Atlantic City jazz history into the future through music education
- Stockton University: Overcoming mental health stigma through holistic healing in Atlantic City
All the stories are also featured on the project’s website, www.storiesofatlanticcity.com.
The people featured in these stories will come together next week for a storytellers event at The Leadership Studio. That launch party is open to the public; RSVP via Facebook here.
Stories of Atlantic City is a collaborative restorative narratives series. It’s an initiative that grew out of Free Press’ News Voices work in Atlantic City in 2015 and culminated in a partnership in 2018 between Free Press, the Center for Cooperative Media at Montclair State University, Stockton University, Images and Voices of Hope (ivoh), a group of engaged community members and five local media outlets.
Stories of Atlantic City was made possible by grants made to Stockton University and the Center for Cooperative Media by the NJ Community News and Information Fund at the Community Foundation of New Jersey, a partnership of the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation and John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. The Center for Cooperative Media, Free Press, Stockton University, and The Leadership Studio are co-managing the project.
We hope you’ll read the stories produced by the partners in this project and consider attending the launch party if you can make it. To learn more about the project, also consider reading these two previous posts:
- Using restorative narrative to tell the story of Atlantic City
- Stories of Atlantic City launches, pairing community members with media in a unique new collaborative
Then early this summer, the Center and Cooperative Media and Free Press will publish a full case study and evaluation and behind-the-scenes video about Stories of Atlantic City, to hopefully inspire similar collaboratives in other cities across the United States.
About the Center for Cooperative Media: The Center is a grant-funded program of the School of Communication and Media at Montclair State University. The Center is supported with funding from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, Democracy Fund, the New Jersey Local News Lab Fund of the Community Foundation of New Jerseyand the Abrams Foundation. Its mission is to grow and strengthen local journalism, and in doing so serve New Jersey residents. For more information, visit CenterforCooperativeMedia.org.
About Free Press: Free Press was created to give people a voice in the crucial decisions that shape our media. We believe that positive social change, racial justice and meaningful engagement in public life require equitable access to technology, diverse and independent ownership of media platforms, and journalism that holds leaders accountable and tells people what’s actually happening in their communities.
