The unglamorous reality of community engagement and why it’s totally worth it
Here’s a confession: I bought my car because I wanted something low to the ground and with a big trunk — you know, something suitable for hauling large amounts of printed materials from event to event. Oh, and I still happily remember the first time I persuaded a supervisor to let me buy a $50 wagon from Costco; it probably saved my back.
In the 10-plus years that I’ve worked in engaged journalism, I’ve gleefully watched the field of practice grow and the awareness of its potential as a journalistic and financial engine for our future deepen. What I haven’t seen is enough conversation on the hard work that goes into it. I’m not just talking about the strategic thinking or emotional labor — and there is a lot of both — but, instead, the spreadsheets (so many spreadsheets), the marathon days going business to business to put up posters, the hauling of coloring books, Post-its, and catering trays.
Thinking about this recently, I decided to reach out to current and past members of the extended KPCC/LAist engagement team to ask: What’s the least glamorous or hardest task you’ve taken on as part of your engaged journalism work? And what’s made it worth it?
Caitlin Biljan
Assistant Producer, Community Engagement
The unglamorous: Normally, the wind doesn’t bother me, but on a day when I’m tabling, it becomes my mortal enemy. It wants to rip my pop-ups into the sky. It wants to ruffle my clipboard and blow my flyers all over the parking lot. Then there’s the sun. There’s nothing like feeling your body dehydrate into a husk as you try to help people with election questions. It’s not just nature that presents challenges. Spreadsheets are also wily. I think of systematically analyzing hundreds of questions to find patterns to help the newsroom respond to what’s really on people’s minds. I think of painstakingly crafting accurate answers (and all the phone calls and emails that precede that). I think of wearing a roll of blue tape like a bracelet, backstage marking places or in the city placing posters. I will always be surrounded by a flurry of spreadsheets, flyers, scripts and forms — but I wouldn’t have it any other way!
Was it worth it? Yes! When I cheer backstage as an Unheard LA storyteller takes the stage, or when we help someone vote in their first election, or when we get groceries delivered to someone’s uncle who can’t leave his house, I know that all the work is worth it. Helping people matters. Listening is everything. Providing a public service is who we are. Recently, someone reached out to us with an unemployment problem so frustrating and dire that we were concerned for her immediate well-being. We connected her with a service that helped, and she reached out again to say that email saved her life. That kind of impact is worth every windstorm and every spreadsheet and every long day, for sure.
Mariana Dale
Early childhood education reporter
The unglamorous: Closing the loop and maintaining my source list. My relationship with each story and the people in it doesn’t end when I send the audio to KPCC’s producers or get the story online. The goal is that each person I talk to can find the piece they helped make possible. Sometimes I send a text with the expected airtime and how to listen, an email with a link to our website or a tweet in response to a call-out. I include not only sources featured by name, but also those whose background conversations or interviews don’t end up in the final script. I thank that person again for their time and explain how their experiences or expertise contributed to my greater understanding of the topic.
Was it worth it? This post-story follow-up takes time — around 45 minutes for longer feature stories. It’s always worth it. I can’t imagine trying to build a trusting relationship without showing people the end result of our conversation or interaction. I’m also interested in cultivating connections beyond a single story. My first full-time editor always knew who to call when I was stumped. His (sometimes contentious!) relationships within Southern Arizona spanned decades. To support that, I try to spend at least 20 minutes a week updating my source list, which includes contact information and relevant keywords for each person.
Michelle Faust Raghavan
Now: Equity Initiative Manager, Solutions Journalism Network
Previously: KPCC Health Care Reporter
The unglamorous: When I wrote a three-part series on elder abuse, the audience response was immediate and positive. Still, we knew there were older adults and caregivers who might not read our site or listen to our station and who could still benefit from the information. So, we set out to find them. That included tabling at health events likely to be attended by Spanish-speaking Angelenos and hosting on-site conversations. At one event, we were informed five minutes before beginning that the hourlong conversation would need to take place in Spanish despite our having prepared everything in English. So, what did we do? We conducted everything in Spanish, and the several rounds of applause we received from the participating seniors made clear their appreciation.
Was it worth it? I’ve found that the most useful engaged journalism is often the least glamorous. This was no exception. We have to meet our audiences where they are. If the story/investigation/series is important to our newsroom, we have to go beyond simply looking at data and talking to a few sources. There are details the data cannot tell us. We have to ask people directly about the information that they need, whether they feel heard by the news media, and how their lives have directly been affected by a policy. Engaged journalism goes further than simple sourcing.
Caitlin Hernández
Now: On-Call Assistant Producer, Engagement
Previously: Intern, Community Engagement
The unglamorous: When I worked on the help desk, I focused on our text platform often. This quickly became the least glamorous part for me. I answered dozens of questions a week and made calls about what parts of a story to highlight in weekly texts — all in 350 characters or less. My day sometimes felt like this: Check the day’s stories, answer the same questions, wash, rinse, and repeat. When we’d hear back from people how grateful they were, it reminded me that having these one-on-one conversations with hundreds of people wasn’t something to minimize.
Was it worth it? I think the connections we made with people over text speak for themselves — it’s a quick way to bond with people. If someone sends a message asking for help, and you respond timely with what they need, you’re now building a layer of trust. The newsroom is no longer just a distant entity on a website or radio dial. It’s accessible and just a text away. We had community members converse with us over months — and many told us they were sharing what we sent with family, friends and strangers. Seeing this impact always made it worth it, and I hope this work helped people feel heard.
Zoe Ives
Intern, Community Engagement
The unglamorous: Before I joined the engagement team, I had very little experience working with spreadsheets. I’m still by no means an Excel whiz, but basic spreadsheet skills were something I had to learn very fast. At the start of my internship, I spent most of my time organizing the questions we receive from community members. We do this so that we can easily answer the questions people have, and so we can flag reporters when we notice trends in those questions. When the COVID-19 case number was at its highest in Los Angeles, I spent entire shifts transferring information from our Q&A platforms to our spreadsheets. On my birthday, Jan. 29, we received more than a hundred questions about vaccine distribution alone!
Was it worth it? It has absolutely been worth it! I know that for every question answered, we are doing what we can to get people in touch with the information they need to make important, and sometimes life-altering, decisions. The work that we do both individually and on a larger scale (in engagement-based stories, events, etc.) has an impact on the community, and that is reflected in the types of questions we see on our end. It’s a loop that can leave all parties informed and result in journalism that meets the informational needs of our readership. I always feel amazed and grateful when people respond positively to the information I send them. In these ways, I’m able to be part of creating content that truly helps people, and that is incredibly exciting!
Brianna Lee
Engagement Producer, College Pathways
The hardest: The hardest task I had to take on was figuring out how best to utilize our social media tools to help people process everything during the early months of the pandemic, when I was still managing KPCC/LAist’s social media. So many changes were happening; misinformation was everywhere. I created a Facebook group so that our community could have a space to support each other through all the uncertainty, which thousands of people immediately joined — and suddenly found myself as a lone moderator trying to fact check posts about epidemiological science or figure out what to do when members tried to submit dozens of memes a day.
Was it worth it? It was absolutely worth it. It was tough, especially because I was going through the same stress responses and uncertainty as the rest of our community — but I learned a lot about how to manage a community space online during an unprecedented public health crisis. I found ways to allow members to connect with each other while staying firm on sticking to confirmed facts, connected people with reporters working on stories, and hopefully played some small role in helping people feel less alone.
Sarah Pineda
Now: Engagement Producer for KQED Arts & Culture
Previously: Assistant Producer, Community Engagement at KPCC
The hardest: The hardest task of doing engaged journalism is getting buy-in from colleagues in the newsroom. For many journalists, this work is new to them because they’ve been so used to their traditional way of reporting, using the same Rolodex of sources. When I’m introducing and explaining to others what engaged journalism is, fellow journalists will express their fear that it won’t work or they don’t have time for it. In order to get folks on board with my engagement strategies, I show them what successful engagement work looks like. This can be my own past work or work from other newsrooms that can help strengthen my case.
Was it worth it? Once I get that buy-in, my team then gets to see for themselves the boost engaged journalism adds to our work through intentional reporting. We build relationships with our community, create spaces for communications, and see our numbers in return visitors grow as folks get to see their stories being reflected in our reporting. That alone, makes it 100 percent worth it.
Stefanie Ritoper
Engagement Producer, Early Childhood
The unglamorous: I would say the least glamorous part of the work I’ve done so far is all the paperwork (and follow-ups and signatures and more paperwork) that it took to secure childcare, rides, and translation at our in person meetings in the Before Times. It’s the kind of thing that sounds so easy, but for a big organization like ours, it took a lot of behind-the-scenes conversations (by Ashley) and chasing people down to review technical language and get their signatures (by me).
Was it worth it? It was definitely, 100 percent worth it. Many of the parents who participated in our Parenting, Unfiltered project would not have been able to attend or participate in our meetings without these things. And the in person relationships that they made with us and with each other helped the project evolve when the pandemic hit and they continued to share their stories with us about how their lives were changing.
David Rodriguez
Now: Community Engagement Producer at Reveal
Previously: Assistant Engagement Producer at KPCC
The unglamorous: I think the least glamorous task for my engaged journalism work is the research when I’m being intentional of who we’re trying to reach out to and why — my many, many spreadsheets around the 2020 census can speak to that. The hardest task is developing and building trust with communities because engaged journalism shouldn’t be extractive.
Was it worth it? It feels worth it through the process, or at the end, when you hear from people who say they feel listened to and connected to others with similar thoughts and experiences. This work takes time and is different every time, but it feels like I’m making a difference even in small ways.
Peri Wallent
News Apprentice, Community Engagement
The unglamorous: In the name of engaged journalism, I’ve toured entire neighborhoods on Google street view to find buildings with large walls, embarrassed myself by dancing in front of a crowd of park-goers for a TikTok, and spent hours combing through a spreadsheet with more than 3,000 rows to find any mention of the restaurant industry. But what stands out as least glamorous is when I regularly dig to the deepest page-10-search-results corners of the Internet to find answers to audience questions.
Was it worth it? What makes it worthwhile is when people email me to say that my response was the reason they were able to make an appointment for the second dose of their COVID-19 vaccine, or find out how to turn in their mail-in ballot, or get vital evacuation information in the midst of a wildfire near their home. And the laughs I get from responses like this aren’t too bad either: “You said to let you know if there is anything else you can do …. Maybe you can get me an elderly rich husband and a boat and a racehorse???”
Without a doubt, I can state that engaged journalism is my calling. On the most personal level, I grew up feeling unheard and unseen — in my community and in the news I voraciously consumed. (Yes, I was the kid who raced home to watch the afternoon news.) When I was first introduced to engaged journalism, I immediately recognized in it the potential to improve that experience for others. At its heart, engagement is about removing barriers for participation and creating a welcoming space so that more people can have access to the information they need to be their own best advocates.
It’s also a critical discipline through which journalists can increase trust, produce unique and relevant content, diversify and engage more sources, reach bigger and more engaged audiences, and support the bottom line (as an example, more than 50 percent of people who ask KPCC/LAist questions via Hearken sign up for our newsletters).
Beyond the metrics, I’ll admit that so much of this work is personal for me. Getting to see somebody share their story on the Unheard LA stage, receiving gratitude- and relief-filled emails from folks whose COVID questions we’ve answered, seeing the unfiltered photos and words of parents across Southern California — this is work that renews me and keeps me going. And, in times like this, that’s everything.
Work in engagement and have experiences to share? We’d love to read them in the comments or you can find me on Twitter at @ashleyalvarado.
