The People’s Press
The Problem We Aim To Solve
Local news ecosystems are collapsing across the country. This is due to the rise of technology use when it comes to journalism and the presence of national media companies that are more successful at converting online readers into digital subscribers than smaller publications that focus on local news. All in all, the public is more interested in national news than what is going on in their own backyard, even though this is what affects them immediately and directly. The People’s Press will work to connect residents of small towns and cities with journalists for those areas through an unconventional “roundtable discussion.”
The Big Idea
The idea for The People’s Press stemmed from what one would see during a typical panel discussion. At gatherings of The People’s Press, local reporters will come together with citizens to discuss issues they are reporting on, while the public can voice their opinion on what they wish to see covered. The public will also people to ask journalists questions about their process o whatever they wish to know about news and media. What makes this different from a panel discussion is the location. The People’s Press will meet in public parks, where the fresh outdoors and activities can be combined with an insightful conversation. Local businesses and vendors will also be present, providing an incentive for those who may not be interested in the news to attend.
Our Mission
As a collective, we strive to close the current gap between local journalists and the public and help revive local news ecosystems through educating citizens. Through research, we discovered that the Austin American-Statesman, the Daily Texan, and the Austin Chronicle are examples of local newsrooms. Because of this, the project will start in Austin, Texas, with the hopes of it expanding to other communities. Examples of organizations similar to The People’s Press are The Somerville News Garden and City Bureau. The City Bureau offers incentives for the community just as The People’s Press does. For instance, the People’s Press is partnered with Build Coffee and offers workshops such as how to use the Freedom of Information Act to obtain public records, and how to find and analyze public data. It is these incentives that bring in the public and keep them interested in attending the meetings.
☆ Audience Involvement
We regard Austin, the capital of Texas, as the city where the project is launched. There are three main types of participants in the project’s operation: local reporters, local citizens, and local businesses.
The role of local reporters is to report on the progress of some news reports and listen to the opinions of the public. We will invite the journalists from newsrooms such as Austin American-Statesman, The Daily Texan, and The Austin Chronicle to the discussion. The second type of the participant is local citizens who mainly play the role of information providers in our project. Citizens will directly comment on previous news reports and suggest areas they would like newsroom to focus on. The third type of participant is local businesses. The venders will provide some benefits to the citizens, so as to motivate the citizens to participate in this activity.
☆ How does The People’s Press work?
Those who fall under our target audience of participants find out about our program through a variety of ways, such as through our flyer (distributed online via email list and posted around town), via radio/newspaper, or by word of mouth. Anyone interested in attending can find the next meeting date on our online calendar and RSVP it attend if they so choose. Meetings typically run for 2 hours in length, set at a new location each time in order to keep things interesting and provide a unique setting to think and speak. Snacks and beverages are always provided as an incentive, and parents with young children can even bring them along and send them off with a member of our team who runs a child care service to keep them occupied while the adults attend. Journalists conduct presentations, citizens offer ideas and engage in discussion, and there is always a very positive environment within the space, even if an issue is being presented. Attendees can learn more about our programs at the end of the meeting and are always invited to come back and spread the word about our mission in order to bring more passionate people into our initiative.
☆ Statement of Change
Citizens will have a better understanding of journalist’s work and become more informed about the news in their community. Through this, the public will see the importance of engaging in local news, and the ecosystems that are collapsing will be revived through more readers of local publications. Trust will also be strengthened between the public and reporters, and the importance of local news will be recognized.
Reimagining Journalism & Future Initiatives
In order to increase attendance and encourage those to join us to come back again, we have projects in the works that branch out from our main initiative and get more people involved in this “re-birth” of local journalism. Above is an example of where these ideas would look to go, based on a partnership with City Bureau, a nonprofit civic journalism lab in South Side Chicago that has a very similar mission to our own.
Our project aims to create an entirely new conversation (1) about the importance of local journalism at the community level and the involvement of community members in journalistic processes. We strive to bring journalists and communities together (2) in order to collaborate, produce impactful forms of media and emphasize the need for local journalism in a world consumed by big-name television programs and news outlets. Through our commitment to one community at a time (3), this effort will spread like an epidemic and put a fire under people’s butts in order to create change and rebuild local news ecosystems that will no longer be collapsing.
Outtakes
- Going into communities, compare large-scale national news coverage in print to uplifting, local journalism in that give the community
- Increasing the ways to get revenue through collaboration and partnerships among professional journalists at local newspapers, TV and radio stations, digital-only organizations and nonprofit newsgroups, both state-based and national
- Big-name journalists and their companies promote local journalism so that more people will be interested in it and may even contribute towards funding (Ex. CNN helping fund smaller, local news broadcast stations)
Resources
☆ Our Team
