Chalkbeat Tennessee
There’s a monthly book club in Memphis, Tennessee where parents (and grandparents) get together to read about and discuss the pressing issues facing local public schools. This group is called Memphis Lift, and it’s guaranteed that an article or two from Chalkbeat Tennessee will be on the reading list each month. Group leaders often reach out to Caroline Bauman, Chalkbeat Tennessee’s Community Editor, to say, “we liked this article but didn’t understand this part. Could you come next month to tell us more?” For Bauman, opportunities like this are part and parcel of her job.
“Publication isn’t the endgame, continuing the conversation is,” said Bauman.
Chalkbeat Tennessee launched three and a half years ago to add some much needed coverage of Memphis’s education system. Before the arrival of the project Memphis had only one dedicated education reporter and “a real dearth in good coverage about public education,” according to Bauman. Her work is part of the national Chalkbeat organization that operates seven hyper-local outlets dedicated to writing about equity in education across the US.
Bauman is part of a three person team that reports daily on Memphis public schools. But beyond reporting, Bauman wants to ensure Chalkbeat’s stories are accessible to all local parents and that reporting responds directly to the information needs of the community around education. A lot of this is accomplished by establishing facetime with residents. Chalkbeat hosts events a few times per season and invites loyal readers.
But Bauman’s focus shifted after a few of those efforts. “Having an event where everyone already knows you is nice, but we want to be where most people haven’t heard of us,” Bauman said. She shifted her strategy, to partnering with existing community events and efforts, and has seen some results.
Bauman partnered on a recent Hispanic heritage event in Memphis. She brought a translator and a one pager in Spanish with summaries of Chalkbeat stories. Many parents at the event hadn’t heard of pre-kindergarten so Bauman and her colleagues shared information about pre-k opportunities around town.
Conversations with parents at these events also inform Chalkbeat’s reporting, and help initiate a two-way conversation with a more diverse group of community members. Parents often make suggestions for stories or ask for certain topics to be investigated. Bauman said that it’s important to make good on these requests.
“They need to see that you’re not just listening but that you’re starting conversations around these topics and then inviting people back into the conversation,” said Bauman.
As both the community editor and a reporter, Bauman’s able to follow a story from its inception out in the community, through its production, and then its distribution back out to residents.
“There’s so much benefit to an engagement editor or a community editor being a reporter. It’s cyclical. It all goes together. There’s still so much of the nuance of the history of the town that I don’t know. Being entrenched in these community events, my understanding is more holistic than if I were just a community editor or just a reporter,” she said.
Chalkbeat Tennessee puts out a daily newsletter to 2,400 subscribers, with higher than average click through rates. But they are also dedicated to sharing important education information in whatever ways are most accessible to people. With that in mind, Chalkbeat has sought out community partnerships, especially with other local media outlets.
“Anyone can reprint us at anytime as long as they follow our guidelines,” said Bauman.
This has led to partnerships with Memphis’s main daily, a local Spanish language paper, a bi-weekly spot on the local NPR affiliate, and a host of other media as well. Bauman also knows simply being out in the community is still one of the most important means of distributing information.
“Producing a piece of journalism sometimes looks like showing up to a community event with a story printed out. You’re reaching a totally different audience than if you were reprinted in The Commercial Appeal [Memphis’ newspaper of record],” said Bauman.
Bauman is sympathetic to balancing the daily grind of reporting and the time commitment of sustained engagement but said that finding ways to make the two serve one another is crucial.
“To me, if you want to build a sustainable model and if you want to have a job as a reporter in the next 5 or 10 years it’s not an option. You have to be embedded in the community, in part because you get better stories, but also your community won’t read you if they don’t know you.”
The Listening Post Collective is a project of Internews. We provide journalists, newsroom leaders, and non-profits tools and advice to create meaningful conversations with their communities. We believe responsible reporting begins with listening. From there, media outlets and community organizations can create news stories that respond to people’s informational needs, reflect their lives, and enable them to make informed decisions.
