Take a Walk: Community Engagement in Solutions Journalism.
I. Show Up.
During the Fall of 2014, renown journalist, Bob Woodward gave my investigative journalism class his most important tip for good journalism: showing up.
Woodward told us the story about a piece he was reporting, during his early days at The Washington Post, on the Mayflower coffee shop which had shut down due to health and hygiene violations. The future Watergate journalist used the documents about the violations and wrote a story about the coffee shop located at the Mayflower Hotel being shut down due to health code violations. After submitting the story, Woodward’s editor asked him if he had been to the restaurant — he had not.
At the urging of his editor, Woodward went to the Mayflower Hotel to visit the coffee shop — there was none. Woodward later found out the Mayflower coffee shop was located in the Statler-Hilton Hotel. During his visit to the real Mayflower Coffee Shop, which was closed, Woodward spoke with the manager who admitted that the restaurant had been closed for health violations.
“If we’d run this story without me getting my ass out of the chair and going to the scene, we probably would have had to run a front-page correction also,” Woodward recounted the story to the Washington Post.
Bob Woodward’s advice to “show up” is important not only in investigative journalism but solutions journalism. In solutions journalism, at times, we engage with the community that we are reporting about to find out what challenges the community might be facing or to observe local responses to a community problem. Overall it is ideal to engage with the community.
Think of solutions journalism and engagement as a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Solutions journalism is the peanut butter and engaging with your community is the jelly. These items can be consumed separately but they also work really well together, explained Andrea Wenzel, a solutions journalism professor at Temple University.
II. Visit and Listen.
The “Listening Post Playbook” advises journalists to “go for a walk in the community, but leave your microphone behind. Pay attention to where people hang out…sit down at a restaurant, strike up a conversation, look for local signs posted in the neighborhood.”
Other suggested strategies for community engagement included taking photos, attending events and meeting with community leaders. This approach goes beyond “showing up.” It involves engaging with the community, taking time to establish relationships and confirming if there is a need for your story within the community.
A day after Jesse Hardman, reporter and Listening Post creator, arrived in New Orleans he walked throughout the Central City neighborhood without his microphone or notebook, taking in the city and speaking with local business owners, residents and religious leaders. He learned about the challenges ailing the neighborhood, like increased gun violence.
III. Take a Walk.
I decided to take Hardman’s approach and walk through the 16th block of North Philadelphia in between West Susquehanna avenue and Diamond street. I took photos of community murals and everyday life, such as bikers and pedestrians. Prior to the walk, I did not have any story leads for our class topic on poverty in Philadelphia.
While walking through the neighborhood, I decided to speak with some of the residents. I spoke with two African-American men, one was an older gentleman in his mid-50s and the other was much younger, perhaps in his early 20s. I asked them about their experience as residents in North Philadelphia, two blocks west of Temple University.
The older gentleman, Anthony, was born and raised on that block and recounted memories of a promising and prosperous community. He told me about booming small businesses and friendly neighbors. Presently, the street is plagued with gun violence, littered with trash caked in mud and current residents are being pushed out amid gentrification.
In a discussion about the stadium that Temple University plans to build and the repercussions of that, Anthony, seemingly unfazed by the University’s growing encroachment upon the residents’ space. He responded, “Temple gets what Temple wants.”
Showing up and engaging with the community inspired me with a few story ideas for the class “Poverty in Philadelphia” topic. After my interactions with community members, I am looking into the lack of affordable housing amid gentrification in North Philadelphia and what organizations are doing to solve this problem.
