If I were to read one of the High Ground articles without context, I would categorize the articles as traditional journalism. The writing feels like it is about an issue and the people who are dealing with it but, besides interviews, it doesn’t feel appear as if the subjects are involved in the creation of the work. That said, I have the context of the introductory and summative pieces that delve deeper into the ways that the community was involved in driving the process and determining the content that was focused on. Thus, I would probably classify this as civic journalism, since the journalist is still acting as the main editorial source, but the story is driven by community members who are the subjects of the piece and the goal is to inspire action on the part of the readers and the community. Some projects that were undertaken as part of the process included weekly forums, mixers, and creation of a community art show. These techniques would foster an environment of collaboration and co-creation, but the final work still feels like the summative creation of trained journalists. While the writing itself feels a little bit more traditional, the work being done by the community reflects CBPR practices. For example, the community decided that creating a greenway would benefit residents, but, rather than bringing in an architect to determine the course, community members were asked to give input on how the greenway would be designed. Additionally, other projects in the community, such as a garden, were driven by community identified needs and conducted by community members themselves for the benefit of all. In conducting our own work, I think we might draw from the practices of having community driven activities that determine how and where we direct our focus. Unfortunately, I feel a lot of this work hinged on the fact that the community of interest was small, close-knit and localized. If we want to use some of their practices, we may need to narrow our focus more to Colorado Springs than to a national level. This is probably something we should consider in designing our project in order to determine how we want our wider community to be involved.
At first glance, the High Grounds reporting technique seems more like traditional journalism. The High Ground is working with the community to report on their problems and what the community of The Heights was doing, while telling the public how the community improved their situation. The journalists are telling stories of creating student-led farmers markets, resident-led development, et cetera giving readers information of how community members were improving their communities. When looking at the final assigned article “What Smart Neighborhoods Can Learn from The Heights,” it seems that the High Grounds project took a more engaged and civic journalism approach. They discuss meeting with community members in newsrooms, participating in block parties and photo events, and doing much more engagement. Once learning this context, understanding their approach becomes more robust. Additionally, it gives communities a way to learn from The Heights and steps to take to change their communities. Overall, High Grounds took an engaged and civic journalism approach to inspire others to create change and participate in democracy. We can try to use techniques such as showing up to community events and asking questions or listening to their concerns to start addressing this problem. One thing that drastically differs from High Grounds is our time frame. High Grounds spent four months showing up to community events and gatherings and we have two weeks to do so. I think it would be valuable to research different events and decide one or two that would be most relevant to our project and engage with smaller communities. I also like how they created a list of “takeaways” that people can use. I think could be a valuable project that we tackle.
I had a challenging time characterizing High Ground’s reporting techniques, but I eventually settled on two primary approaches: civic and engaged. According to the short biographies of the authors we read tonight, all were ‘professional’ journalists not citizens and therefore, High Ground cannot be considered citizen journalism. However, despite being written by ‘professionals,’ High Ground did employ engaged journalism tactics, such as hosting weekly community newsrooms where residents could share story ideas and six events (e.g., block parties) over the course of their four-month reporting stint. Finally, High Ground concluded its time in the neighborhood with a reception and photography show for community members highlighting the residents of The Heights and all the events the journalists had covered since arriving. In this way, we see how High Ground engaged residents at the preliminary planning phase of articles and closed their time in The Heights with an event specifically for—and celebrating—the residents. Furthermore, I argue High Ground could be classified as engaged journalism because of the articles’ deeply local nature and the folks quoted in their pieces. For example, in “Kingsbury High grows health and entrepreneurship with city’s first student-led farmers market,” out of the five citizens quoted, three were current students. This ratio is rare in traditional journalism which has historically elevated the voices of those in power and thus, reinforces High Ground’s shift to a more engaged model. Also, I believe a core tenet of engaged journalism is that the articles are produced both alongside and for citizens. The articles we read tonight had an additional hyperlink at the top of the page where readers could access the same article in Spanish, which is crucial so that all citizens can read and benefit from the works produced. Finally, I argue High Ground could also be considered civic journalism because of the nature of several of their stories, such as “Neighborhood by design.” Although this article does not directly call citizens to action (i.e., provide a detailed action plan), it does outline in detail the current plans and efforts to redesign The Heights Line, thus giving citizens a comprehensive overview of the project. In this way, High Ground provides The Heights’ residents with the tools and knowledge they need to get involved in the debate and conversation surrounding this project, encouraging them to become involved.
I think we could employ the following strategies from High Ground given our time frame and budget:
• Culminating exhibition: my group and I discussed hosting an exhibition of sorts today in class to ensure that we do not simply exploit community members for the benefit of our project and then never follow up or give them anything in return. Therefore, I think an exhibition of some kind would be a great way to return the project back our local community at the end of the block.
• Community meetings: while High Ground was able to organize their own weekly community meetings, I think that we should instead attend already existing community meetings and listen to participants and gather information there.
• Translating ‘action packet’ into Spanish: given the significant presence of Spanish-speakers in Colorado, I think we should consider publishing our ‘action packet’ into Spanish to best serve our entire community.
• “Facts and Feelings: The push to improve safety in The Heights”: this article outlines the differences between factual crime rates and residents’ perceptions of crime rates (including a “Perceptions and realities” section), which is quite similar to the project we discussed today around misconceptions about guns in schools. Therefore, I think we could definitely complete a similar project in explaining the facts about guns in schools while acknowledging people’s perceptions and their importance too.
I think the reporting on the heights took a more civic journalism approach. The articles seem at first that they follow traditional journalism because of how it did not necessarily include community members as participators in the articles. For example, one of the articles was an historical account of Memphis’ streetcar suburb. In addition, the author seemed to be the messenger in relying information about community programs and events such as the student-leader farmers market. However, despite this I believe the reporting style to be a more civic approach due to how the news source involves the community. One of the articles calls citizens too, “stop by our weekly community newsroom to share your story ideas and help shape the coverage of these dynamic Memphis neighborhoods,” (Faber). High Ground authors their own articles but receives community input on how to cover news in the neighborhood. This is why I believe High Ground to be have a civic journalist approach.
I think we can mirror High Ground’s collaborative skills. Guns in schools is not something that just affects one certain group and it is important to use the community’s input to help guide our journalistic endeavors. However, with that in mind, it could be difficult to have a widespread community input as High Ground did, due to how many guns in schools reaches. In our prior night of reading we read about how crowdsourcing information can be helpful, although sometimes it leaves journalists in a sea of information that may not be able to effectively get through and vet. For this reason, I think it might be easier to gather community input locally like High Ground, however, guns in schools is a truly national issue.
After surfing around the High Ground website I believe the online news source exhibits traditional, investigative and engaged journalistic tendencies. On Tuesday we discussed the binary between the both traditional and engaged journalism and came the conclusion that more often than not, journalism is not one or the other instead it falls on a spectrum between the two. While most of High Ground's reports are infused with community-driven knowledge, questions, and stories the tone and translation of the reports seems rather investigative and traditional to me. Therefore, I would argue that High Ground would lean slightly more towards the engaged journalism side of the spectrum. The approach they seem to use starts with community-driven, conversation sparking, solution-seeking ideas that are then pieced together and reported on in an investigative manner, especially at first glance. The online news source utilizes attending community events, debates, meetings, etc. that help co-create reports with the public. Subsequently the reports that High Ground publishes are:1) about an issue the community truly cares about and will start a conversation 2) rooted around community-driven knowledge, questions, and stories and 3) pieces that involve the many "truths" and/or voices of the actual community members. High Ground's approach and place on the journalism spectrum is something that we should consider for our report because I think RMPBS (and Laura Frank) would appreciate something that deploys both forms of journalism.
Reading pieces from High Ground helped me realize how it is difficult to categorize a piece of journalism as a passive reader. Providing clarity on why they chose the topics and stories they did would have shown how engaged the journalists actually were. That being said, there were clear aspects of engaged journalism. Most pieces mentioned attending community meetings and hosting open spaces for discussions. The journalist had a good grasp on the community while the citizen still had a voice. Many quotes were taken from community leaders. While they were an obvious choice for an interview because they were most knowledgeable about improving the neighborhood, including quotes from local homeowners and parents could have diversified the voices represented and lended insight to see if changes were actually helping. I’m unsure of how we would use the techniques in High Ground for our project. There takeaways from the project (“What Smart Neighborhoods can Learn from the Heights”) were vague and sweepingly optimistic. Simply spending time in a community to listen and observe can provide great insight as to how it functions—we don’t necessarily have time to do that, but we can attend as many community meetings as possible and host a discussion (between CC, USAFA, UCCS etc). The High Ground struck a good balance by letting citizens have space within their pieces. They did not engage within the (perhaps unrealistic) notion of citizen journalism and the information presented remained relevant and credible. I believe that should be our goal—to create pieces of journalism that are personable, relevant, credible.
High Ground seems to be located in some sort of middle ground between traditional and engaged journalism. In my initial reading of their own description of The Heights project, I assumed that they would be taking a fully engaged approach, since they pretty heavily emphasize community engagement—even in the title of their introduction article which is called, “Help us shape the coverage of The Heights at a community newsroom.” They request that community members “stop by our weekly community newsroom to share [their] story ideas and help shape coverage of these dynamic Memphis neighborhoods.” However, upon looking into the specific articles that make up The Heights project, it becomes clear that the level of engagement that the community members seem to actually have in these articles stops at interviews. Citizens don’t seem to be getting directly involved in fixing situations and High Ground isn’t exactly expecting them to do so either.
The involvement of citizens in deciding which stories to focus on and the use of their direct quotes in the articles is the engaged aspect of High Ground’s technique. Where the news source deviates from this sense of engagement is in their disinterest in giving the citizens the tools they would need to fix issues surrounding their community. Perhaps this is why they refer to their own technique as “sidewalk-level journalism that covers neighborhoods with nuance and centers the experience of residents.” They don’t claim to be engaged, and this isn’t necessarily a good or bad thing. They seem to be forming their own new form of reporting. One where the citizens become slightly more involved in the process than they are in traditional forms of journalism, but are not given the expectation or responsibility of taking issues of their community into their own hands (what would be expected of them in engaged journalism.)
While I am still working towards gaining a more thorough understanding of the different journalism techniques, I believe that the High Ground uses a combination of 2 types of journalism: Citizen and Engaged.
To start, Madeline Faber reports that the High Ground will be reporting about Memphis and she invites people to come into the office and directly SHAPE the way in which the city will be portrayed/ share stories. This reminds me a lot of the CBPR and the methods they used to conduct their research. As we read, the CBPR would include community members directly in their studies. The High ground, Rather than treating the community like a laboratory, Faber is actually inviting the community to help shape the story. This to me feels like a method of citizen journalism.
However, as I continued reading I felt more like the journalism shifted to a more engaged approach. A prime example of this would be when Cole Bradley describes how Memphis has the largest population overweight kids in the country. The article therefore frames the story by describing an issue. It moves on to explain how the city is moving towards creating an environment, in which the children can learn about these issues and affect change. The School Community Partnered with gardeners and entrepreneurs to help teach the community about ways to garden, lead healthier life styles and even to work to create a farmers market! Furthermore, Bradley includes a key point in the story, which is when the community faced a challenge — the school discovered they didn’t have the proper insurance to sell the food they worked so hard to grow. So, Bradley uses an engaged technique which is ENABLING the reader to take action/ work with a problem. In this specific instance, Bradley explains how they worked around the problem rather than giving up.
One of the articles is entitled ‘What smart neighborhoods can learn from The Heights’. The article is set up in a way from the very beginning in which the reader knows they will walk away having learned something, and be able to take action — a key part of engaged journalism. This article goes on to explain the different ways other communities in similar situations can improve. The article includes separate sections with subtitles “passing on the passion”, “and collective effort”, introducing ways in which other communities can improve, and then by diving deeper into those topics as the article moves on. Therefore, it sets the reader up to move forward, and take action.
Engaged journalism would be a smart technique to use in our project due to the sensitive nature of it. Discussing guns and schools can be an extremely emotionally draining, and triggering, topic and I think it’s important that we as a class are enabling our viewers/readers to move on feeling they have something to do. Without using an engaged technique, I personally feel it would be unethical to send our readers/viewers forward. Thus, by using an engaged technique, we can inform but also set people up to affect change throughout the country, rather than leaving them feeling helpless.
I would also just like to add that I am very interested in exploring more the fine differences between activist journalism and engaged journalism, after hearing Laura's opinion on activist journalism in class today. I would like to gain a more clear differentiation between the two.
Although it's tempting to decide that The High Ground project belongs within a single category, it's most appropriately categorized within several of these disciplines of journalism. The project is engaged in that it hosts open newsrooms for the community. It's traditional in the style of reporting, of going to different places within the city and telling their story, without necessarily using the community's help. It's citizen journalism also in that the newsroom is open to everyone, and that citizens can participate in broadcast interviews. This also goes in hand with civic journalism, in that members of the community are attempting to better their community through legislative or local government action. The entire project just feels so personal. From interviews to descriptions of events, the journalists make you feel like a member of the community when you're reading. Themes of "small but mighty" when describing projects of community betterment engage readers in a way that traditional journalism, as practiced, often cannot. "And while the Mitchell Heights Neighborhood Association is small — there are currently only three core members including Merriweather — it’s built community gardens and a pocket park, thrown huge celebrations, decreased crime and blighted properties, and birthed what is likely Memphis’ only minority-owned plant nursery." But that's not the whole story. The introduction to The Heights is one of traditional journalism, taking the reader through history of the community, dating back to the 1870s. That's pure traditional journalism right there- research and database collection to put together a full picture of a community that's on a steady rise. I'd love to utilize some of their strategies in order to enhance our own project, but given our time frame it's a little out of the question. The idea of having open doors to have people come collaborate is a great idea, but it would be tough to get people involved that quickly. The best way we can emulate The High Ground is by getting into community spaces and serving them, telling their story. That garden story is a great example of a community project that lots of people probably wouldn't know about unless there was a story like that. Maybe there are some fun community projects in the Springs that we don't know about- maybe some groups are organizing events in the name of stopping guns in schools, or just overall guns.
One of the articles that outlines the history and climb of The Heights traces the historical events around Memphis with their social implications as well as quotes from current community members about the present-day implications. I would characterize this approach as engaged journalism with an emphasis on allowing citizens to have a voice in the publication. This article essentially made a timeline of the area’s developments coupled and extended upon by other data and empirical data from that time as well as a plan for the future of the community. This approach was both holistic and an engaged way to access both empirical and anecdotal evidence. The specificity of details like the ones included in Bradley’s article about the student-led farmers market represent the true engagement with the citizens in this community. The author was clearly in constant active conversation with the young gardeners, as he included specific comments about even the most specific of details. Bradly puts this farmers market in the greater perspective of the obesity in Shelby County as well as the desire to teach the next generation to engage in community outreach. This effort provides a mental break for students facing hard home lives and allows students “limited by poverty and food insecurity” to have an outlet through cultivating healthy and sustainable gardens. So much of the rhetoric surrounding the writings from High Ground emphasize what we’ve been discussing in class about how to be an effective engaged journalist and how to employ strategies to ensure writing with communities instead of writing about them. I think we can utilize their technique for our project because we will undoubtedly encounter empirical data that is pertinent to our analysis of school shootings to utilize, but I think a strong focus can be on the impacts on individuals through personal experiences and community engagement.
What I found to be particularly interesting about the mission of Higher Ground was to provide greater and more well-rounded context about the neighborhoods of Memphis, and to highlight where the city is going. This mission seems to be focused more on engaged journalism as on their about us section they write, “we seek to rebalance the news so that Memphians are exposed to stories that help them understand the city’s challenges and better understand that there are people in every neighborhood across Memphis innovating for solutions.” However, I am hesitant to just assign a label to what they're reporting actually is, as if that is all encompassing. I think that throughout this class we have recognized that there is specific aspects of traditional journalism as well as engaged journalism that are helpful, accomplishing different things. We need to be able to incorporate both, and I think that Higher Ground is doing just that. I think that they are employing traditional techniques in the sense of doing investigative work, trying to uncover untold trends. As stated earlier, they hope to provide important context about certain neighborhoods in Memphis, which I also think is a component of traditional journalism. At the same time, they are reporting while walking the sidewalks, letting community members provide the information. I think another thing that sets Higher Ground apart is the attempt to avoid sensationalist news coverage. The article about Mitchell Heights Neighborhood Association was incredibly impactful, filled with important information about the associations impact and their founders. This was only because the over sensationalized story of an underdeveloped, potentially crime-ridden area was not the angle. It focused solely on problem-solving and is incredibly empowering to any readers who hopes to make a difference.
High Ground News uses investigative and engaged techniques to tell a story about a neighborhood. The agency hosts a community newsroom to hear from members of the community about their questions, ideas for stories, and experiences. This is an engaged technique that we've already talked about using as part of the social outreach project. A led discussion that is a safe space to learn from others, ask questions, and share opinion and beliefs is a way for us to foster community led learning and engagement with this issue. This seems to be a method of engaged journalism and civic journalism. I would like to clarify the distinction between these.
The neighborhoods are covered using different forms of media such as video and photo series, which we can also use as tools to tell the story about guns. Just like the dynamic Heights neighborhood, the story of guns in schools is an evolving story that will be best told if it is created with the community. Other articles in this series read as more traditional and describe the goings on in the neighborhoods and give some figures. This kind of info seems to be derived from a more simple investigative lens, but reading about the process used by the journalists and the community events, it is clear that the journalists also use engaged techniques. Focus groups were used to determine the main concerns citizens had for the neighborhood. Focus groups could be an effective way to determine community members' main concerns about gun violence, or to discuss problem solving. Investigative articles clearly tapped into the knowledge of community members, which of course we should do in our projects as well.
High Ground News took an engaged approach to what reads like traditional journalism. The reporting style of the articles seems very similar to a newspaper with quotes, clear purpose, and a factual sounding writing style. Cole Bradley’s reporting in articles such as, ‘Small but mighty: Resident-led development improves Mitchell Heights’ does not immediately seem to show any knowledge that an “outsider” reporter would not be able to gather. However, phrases like “plenty of youth and passion” coupled with bright photography give the reader a sense that Bradley seems more attached to the neighborhood than a simple newspaper report. And in fact, he was. Bradley borrowed many practices from engaged journalism that would have connected him more to his subjects. He hosted community events, met with members of the community and spent a long period of time interacting with the neighborhood. High Ground News is a good example of how the format of journalism can change to be more responsible while still creating a similar end product.
While not necessarily relayed in most of Bradley’s writing, many of the techniques used by him would be helpful to adapt for our project in a more time sensitive manner. Bradley used set weekly meeting times where community members could come in and pitch ideas. While this strategy is not possible on the block plan, we could tap into pre-existing networks. Finding an already open conversation would still give us direction as to what people are interested in. Furthermore, I think the engaged part of Bradley’s story really showed through his media incorporations. Showing the different pictures and videos gave the article much more of a community feel and added a new dimension to the story. When designing anything for a public audience, I think it could be a good idea to represent the story we want to tell not just through one medium, but through many different streams.
Community based projects can be a very complicated subject and the journalism surrounding High Ground struggles with many of these questions. Although many of their articles seem to be more typical, as they are written by journalists themselves, the stories they tell remain community centered. Perhaps what struck me most about their approach to news within this area was their commitment to truly being with the people living and working on these projects. Journalists, in the traditional sense, rarely do such thorough and almost ethnographic work while writing stories. Laura Frank illuminated how rare it is to have “beat” writers that focus on a few specific areas of interest within the world of journalism. This has resulted in shorter timelines which have become the new norm within many newsrooms in America. I was impressed with how these journalists were able to immerse themselves in The Heights while writing and researching their pieces.
Although the articles seemed to be traditionally written there are important lessons for us to learn in terms of our engaged journalism practice. We should mimic the intentional time these journalists took to understand what is happening in this area. Through my limited experience with sociological ethnographic research, it is important to gain trust in a slow and responsible way in order to honor the communities you are trying to better understand. Through engaging community stakeholders and taking the time to center voices of underrepresented demographics (such as young students) High Ground seems to be verging on, while not completely embodying the spirit of, engaged journalism. Finally, by taking four months to complete various journalism projects, it shows a sustained effort by this news outlet to this community.
In terms of how we can learn from these articles, I believe it is always important to be very thoughtful and people centered while doing engaged journalism. Through following up and concluding the project in a meaningful way with a reception, High Ground graciously tied up the project for the community. Additionally, they noted that although their specific focus would end in the community, the journalists would continue reporting on the area. Perhaps in our projects we could have some sort of sustained project or impact so we do not leave anyone without a solid feeling of closure or continuous support. Finally, High Ground was able to very purposely involved and interact with many important community stakeholders in The Heights. From neighborhood organizations to community gardens to design studios, these journalists were able to get a diverse sample of groups in this area in an intentional way. I believe we should try to mimic this intentionality and intersectionality with all of our community partners during this block!
High Ground News seems to use a combination of engaged and traditional journalism to report on community issues in Memphis. The way in which High Ground combines the two practices is with community-driven stories. Many of these stories started with forums and events hosted by the news source, wherein citizens would come to them. In this way it would seem that High Ground could be categorized as civic journalism, however often times the journalists would attend block parties and community organized events, which in my opinion is engaged journalism at its best. In most of the articles, High Ground is reporting on inspiring stories and community action rather than solution-based articles on problems within the community. An example of this is “what smart neighborhoods can learn from the Heights”, wherein the reporters shared how citizens were working to better their community. The community garden story is also civic journalism because it’s sharing inspiring stories from within the community, however when the community wanted a greenway, journalists made community input a priority rather than having an architect design it. Showing up to community events and asking questions seems to be really effective and civic journalism is something I would love to explore within our class. I think the article “facts and feelings” is a great templet for our course and the idea we had about myth-busting gun violence facts especially surrounding schools.
As others have also stated, I think the High Ground journalism must be taken in context. Each individual piece might be classified differently, depending on the focus of the article (ie, the history piece is very traditional, while many of the other pieces appear more civic). However, what I think is the important distinction that actually makes High Ground’s journalism engaged and not civic is that the journalists hosted weekly meetings in the community center. While these meetings weren’t directly talked about, I would label the journalism as engaged journalism based off of the assumption that High Ground used these meetings to form connections, find their stories, and find what the community was passionate about and wanted to be shared. These meetings had a consistent time and place, and were open invite to the whole community. Additionally, High Grounds had community closure / follow-up at the end by having a reception and photo gallery to show what they had done within their time. So, while each individual story may not directly appear to be engaged journalism, noting the specificity in the stories and the individuals that were highlighted leads to me to think this is engaged journalism. The one concern I had with this distinction is that I would have liked to see more opportunities to engage. The needs of the community where often mentioned, but no way to fulfill those needs was included (even just a link to donate or volunteer).
While I think their technique was phenomenal and hugely valuable to read about, I don’t think we can fully employ it. The main crux of their technique, in my opinion, is the length of time that High Grounds was on-the-ground. They reported on and met weekly with the community for three months, which I think builds a much stronger understanding and relationship with the community than we will be able to achieve. I also think that having such deep historical knowledge is hugely important to understanding the present day stories, which is something we don’t have time to collect. That being said, there are several distinct choices that High Grounds made that we can utilize, such as having community meetings within the community, having follow-up with the people they worked with, and highlighting individual issues that are important to a set of individuals, and therefore are relevant to the whole community.
The form of journalism employed throughout On the Ground In the Heights’s articles reflects an interesting approach to a project that is deeply engaged. As it was mentioned in the podcast, most of the employees of Heights CDC are residents of the Heights themselves. As a result, it would not be unreasonable to expect the articles that we read to read as pieces of citizen journalism. However, this was not the case. If I had not listened to the first introductory podcast I would have perceived that the authors were removed from the story and the events that they detail. The third person perspective that the authors consistently used causes the pieces read as traditional journalism. However, one noticeable break from traditional journalism comes at the end of some of the articles. The calls for community action and involvement in the reported community development are more reflective of citizen journalism. A second break from traditional journalism comes in the topics that the articles cover. While the approach that the authors take is traditional, the topics are not ones which one would normally expect to read in a daily newspaper. The scale of the projects is relatively small. National newspapers don’t typically cover projects of that scale. That High Ground serves as its own publisher and exists as a stand alone site enables this. It can present engaged/civic journalism as traditional because that is the sole purpose of their site.
While throughout this course we have been defining different forms of journalism to get a better understanding of how we could use them, High Ground’s approach and stories seem to demonstrate that the lines are more obscured. Their articles may come off as traditional journalism in style, but their approach and intent toward what they’re covering seems to lean more toward civic journalism and for some articles, engaged. They make a good effort at covering stories in areas which other, more high level news companies may not wish to cover. However, with the homepage of their website stating “Memphis deserves sidewalk level journalism”, you’d expect it may lean more towards citizen journalism, with the stories being guided by the population of these areas “in the Heights”. Unfortunately, I feel some articles were sincerely lacking in citizen input, explaining why I say “sometimes” engaged, but primarily civil, in their attempt to shed light on these underrepresented and often ignored low-income neighborhoods. The quotes in these articles seem to mainly come from specific community leaders, and with the message and mission which they brand themselves with, I’d expect more from everyday citizens. Nevertheless, I respect their effort to shed light on the people’s experiences and cater their stories towards what their audience needs to hear.
I would say (without being completely certain) that the reporting done by High Ground News is most close to civic journalism. I say civic journalism mostly because it appears to have traits of both engaged and traditional, and civic journalism seems to be somewhere between the two. After all of our talk about engaged journalism, the reporting initially struck me as traditional as it was written by professionals and drew on knowledge of professionals, such as historians. Further, it did have some of the removed, reporting feel as opposed to engaged conversation-initiating type. However, what convinces me that it isn’t purely traditional journalism is that it has an extreme local focus that informs the community in a manner that equips them to grapple with their local issues. For example, I really enjoyed ending the history of “The Heights” with a discussion of the new proposed greenway and efforts to make the city greener. This leaves citizens feeling empowered and as political actors not merely spectators. I found this as well in the article on the farmers’ market, because it portrays citizens as active participants in their community and again has the extreme local focus.
I would like to try to emulate the approach of High Ground News in focusing on local communities rather than only the broader national debate in order to showcase what individuals are doing rather than only large national groups. As part of this, it could be useful to place great emphasis on ongoing movements and efforts to contribute to change. This would strengthen our effort to empower citizens and allow them to be political actors.
HIghGround's reporting technique is clearly engaged in that it is deeply place-based and mindful of the nuances of that identity through exploration of the social and economic history of the area. One benefit of engaged journalism that particularly stood out to me was HIghGround's (slightly ironic) lack of condescension, in that the way they wrote and reported was accesible to anyone, and clearly came from attending events, meeting community officials and regualr citizens alike, and being honest yet positive about the heritage and future of the town. Local's comments underneath it showed how right they got it, and how important it was for people to see their home presented in that way. While this newspaper didn't go so far as to suggest practical, actionable steps, they did help people see a bigger picture, and improved their awareness of events and initiatives in their hometown in a way that didn't cause anxiety and allowed readers to help if they wanted to or could. The photos were also clearly not stock photos, but an accurate depiction of community life. All in all, this is gentle, positive journalism that keeps people informed without aliwnating anyone, or pitting them against each other, or making them anxious, and that's rare and valuable indeed. We as a group can learn from that sensitivity when tackling this deeply sensitive topic, in that we can be careful that our word choice doesn't alienate anyone, and that out choice of content always includes context and perspective and an empowering mention of things they can do to help themselves and others.
If I were to read one of the High Ground articles without context, I would categorize the articles as traditional journalism. The writing feels like it is about an issue and the people who are dealing with it but, besides interviews, it doesn’t feel appear as if the subjects are involved in the creation of the work. That said, I have the context of the introductory and summative pieces that delve deeper into the ways that the community was involved in driving the process and determining the content that was focused on. Thus, I would probably classify this as civic journalism, since the journalist is still acting as the main editorial source, but the story is driven by community members who are the subjects of the piece and the goal is to inspire action on the part of the readers and the community.
ReplyDeleteSome projects that were undertaken as part of the process included weekly forums, mixers, and creation of a community art show. These techniques would foster an environment of collaboration and co-creation, but the final work still feels like the summative creation of trained journalists. While the writing itself feels a little bit more traditional, the work being done by the community reflects CBPR practices. For example, the community decided that creating a greenway would benefit residents, but, rather than bringing in an architect to determine the course, community members were asked to give input on how the greenway would be designed. Additionally, other projects in the community, such as a garden, were driven by community identified needs and conducted by community members themselves for the benefit of all.
In conducting our own work, I think we might draw from the practices of having community driven activities that determine how and where we direct our focus. Unfortunately, I feel a lot of this work hinged on the fact that the community of interest was small, close-knit and localized. If we want to use some of their practices, we may need to narrow our focus more to Colorado Springs than to a national level. This is probably something we should consider in designing our project in order to determine how we want our wider community to be involved.
At first glance, the High Grounds reporting technique seems more like traditional journalism. The High Ground is working with the community to report on their problems and what the community of The Heights was doing, while telling the public how the community improved their situation. The journalists are telling stories of creating student-led farmers markets, resident-led development, et cetera giving readers information of how community members were improving their communities.
ReplyDeleteWhen looking at the final assigned article “What Smart Neighborhoods Can Learn from The Heights,” it seems that the High Grounds project took a more engaged and civic journalism approach. They discuss meeting with community members in newsrooms, participating in block parties and photo events, and doing much more engagement. Once learning this context, understanding their approach becomes more robust. Additionally, it gives communities a way to learn from The Heights and steps to take to change their communities. Overall, High Grounds took an engaged and civic journalism approach to inspire others to create change and participate in democracy.
We can try to use techniques such as showing up to community events and asking questions or listening to their concerns to start addressing this problem. One thing that drastically differs from High Grounds is our time frame. High Grounds spent four months showing up to community events and gatherings and we have two weeks to do so. I think it would be valuable to research different events and decide one or two that would be most relevant to our project and engage with smaller communities. I also like how they created a list of “takeaways” that people can use. I think could be a valuable project that we tackle.
I had a challenging time characterizing High Ground’s reporting techniques, but I eventually settled on two primary approaches: civic and engaged. According to the short biographies of the authors we read tonight, all were ‘professional’ journalists not citizens and therefore, High Ground cannot be considered citizen journalism. However, despite being written by ‘professionals,’ High Ground did employ engaged journalism tactics, such as hosting weekly community newsrooms where residents could share story ideas and six events (e.g., block parties) over the course of their four-month reporting stint. Finally, High Ground concluded its time in the neighborhood with a reception and photography show for community members highlighting the residents of The Heights and all the events the journalists had covered since arriving. In this way, we see how High Ground engaged residents at the preliminary planning phase of articles and closed their time in The Heights with an event specifically for—and celebrating—the residents. Furthermore, I argue High Ground could be classified as engaged journalism because of the articles’ deeply local nature and the folks quoted in their pieces. For example, in “Kingsbury High grows health and entrepreneurship with city’s first student-led farmers market,” out of the five citizens quoted, three were current students. This ratio is rare in traditional journalism which has historically elevated the voices of those in power and thus, reinforces High Ground’s shift to a more engaged model. Also, I believe a core tenet of engaged journalism is that the articles are produced both alongside and for citizens. The articles we read tonight had an additional hyperlink at the top of the page where readers could access the same article in Spanish, which is crucial so that all citizens can read and benefit from the works produced. Finally, I argue High Ground could also be considered civic journalism because of the nature of several of their stories, such as “Neighborhood by design.” Although this article does not directly call citizens to action (i.e., provide a detailed action plan), it does outline in detail the current plans and efforts to redesign The Heights Line, thus giving citizens a comprehensive overview of the project. In this way, High Ground provides The Heights’ residents with the tools and knowledge they need to get involved in the debate and conversation surrounding this project, encouraging them to become involved.
ReplyDeleteI think we could employ the following strategies from High Ground given our time frame and budget:
• Culminating exhibition: my group and I discussed hosting an exhibition of sorts today in class to ensure that we do not simply exploit community members for the benefit of our project and then never follow up or give them anything in return. Therefore, I think an exhibition of some kind would be a great way to return the project back our local community at the end of the block.
• Community meetings: while High Ground was able to organize their own weekly community meetings, I think that we should instead attend already existing community meetings and listen to participants and gather information there.
• Translating ‘action packet’ into Spanish: given the significant presence of Spanish-speakers in Colorado, I think we should consider publishing our ‘action packet’ into Spanish to best serve our entire community.
• “Facts and Feelings: The push to improve safety in The Heights”: this article outlines the differences between factual crime rates and residents’ perceptions of crime rates (including a “Perceptions and realities” section), which is quite similar to the project we discussed today around misconceptions about guns in schools. Therefore, I think we could definitely complete a similar project in explaining the facts about guns in schools while acknowledging people’s perceptions and their importance too.
I think the reporting on the heights took a more civic journalism approach. The articles seem at first that they follow traditional journalism because of how it did not necessarily include community members as participators in the articles. For example, one of the articles was an historical account of Memphis’ streetcar suburb. In addition, the author seemed to be the messenger in relying information about community programs and events such as the student-leader farmers market. However, despite this I believe the reporting style to be a more civic approach due to how the news source involves the community. One of the articles calls citizens too, “stop by our weekly community newsroom to share your story ideas and help shape the coverage of these dynamic Memphis neighborhoods,” (Faber). High Ground authors their own articles but receives community input on how to cover news in the neighborhood. This is why I believe High Ground to be have a civic journalist approach.
ReplyDeleteI think we can mirror High Ground’s collaborative skills. Guns in schools is not something that just affects one certain group and it is important to use the community’s input to help guide our journalistic endeavors. However, with that in mind, it could be difficult to have a widespread community input as High Ground did, due to how many guns in schools reaches. In our prior night of reading we read about how crowdsourcing information can be helpful, although sometimes it leaves journalists in a sea of information that may not be able to effectively get through and vet. For this reason, I think it might be easier to gather community input locally like High Ground, however, guns in schools is a truly national issue.
After surfing around the High Ground website I believe the online news source exhibits traditional, investigative and engaged journalistic tendencies. On Tuesday we discussed the binary between the both traditional and engaged journalism and came the conclusion that more often than not, journalism is not one or the other instead it falls on a spectrum between the two. While most of High Ground's reports are infused with community-driven knowledge, questions, and stories the tone and translation of the reports seems rather investigative and traditional to me. Therefore, I would argue that High Ground would lean slightly more towards the engaged journalism side of the spectrum. The approach they seem to use starts with community-driven, conversation sparking, solution-seeking ideas that are then pieced together and reported on in an investigative manner, especially at first glance. The online news source utilizes attending community events, debates, meetings, etc. that help co-create reports with the public. Subsequently the reports that High Ground publishes are:1) about an issue the community truly cares about and will start a conversation 2) rooted around community-driven knowledge, questions, and stories and 3) pieces that involve the many "truths" and/or voices of the actual community members. High Ground's approach and place on the journalism spectrum is something that we should consider for our report because I think RMPBS (and Laura Frank) would appreciate something that deploys both forms of journalism.
ReplyDeleteso sorry the above is by me, Liza!
DeleteReading pieces from High Ground helped me realize how it is difficult to categorize a piece of journalism as a passive reader. Providing clarity on why they chose the topics and stories they did would have shown how engaged the journalists actually were.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, there were clear aspects of engaged journalism. Most pieces mentioned attending community meetings and hosting open spaces for discussions. The journalist had a good grasp on the community while the citizen still had a voice.
Many quotes were taken from community leaders. While they were an obvious choice for an interview because they were most knowledgeable about improving the neighborhood, including quotes from local homeowners and parents could have diversified the voices represented and lended insight to see if changes were actually helping.
I’m unsure of how we would use the techniques in High Ground for our project. There takeaways from the project (“What Smart Neighborhoods can Learn from the Heights”) were vague and sweepingly optimistic. Simply spending time in a community to listen and observe can provide great insight as to how it functions—we don’t necessarily have time to do that, but we can attend as many community meetings as possible and host a discussion (between CC, USAFA, UCCS etc).
The High Ground struck a good balance by letting citizens have space within their pieces. They did not engage within the (perhaps unrealistic) notion of citizen journalism and the information presented remained relevant and credible. I believe that should be our goal—to create pieces of journalism that are personable, relevant, credible.
High Ground seems to be located in some sort of middle ground between traditional and engaged journalism. In my initial reading of their own description of The Heights project, I assumed that they would be taking a fully engaged approach, since they pretty heavily emphasize community engagement—even in the title of their introduction article which is called, “Help us shape the coverage of The Heights at a community newsroom.” They request that community members “stop by our weekly community newsroom to share [their] story ideas and help shape coverage of these dynamic Memphis neighborhoods.” However, upon looking into the specific articles that make up The Heights project, it becomes clear that the level of engagement that the community members seem to actually have in these articles stops at interviews. Citizens don’t seem to be getting directly involved in fixing situations and High Ground isn’t exactly expecting them to do so either.
ReplyDeleteThe involvement of citizens in deciding which stories to focus on and the use of their direct quotes in the articles is the engaged aspect of High Ground’s technique. Where the news source deviates from this sense of engagement is in their disinterest in giving the citizens the tools they would need to fix issues surrounding their community. Perhaps this is why they refer to their own technique as “sidewalk-level journalism that covers neighborhoods with nuance and centers the experience of residents.” They don’t claim to be engaged, and this isn’t necessarily a good or bad thing. They seem to be forming their own new form of reporting. One where the citizens become slightly more involved in the process than they are in traditional forms of journalism, but are not given the expectation or responsibility of taking issues of their community into their own hands (what would be expected of them in engaged journalism.)
While I am still working towards gaining a more thorough understanding of the different journalism techniques, I believe that the High Ground uses a combination of 2 types of journalism: Citizen and Engaged.
ReplyDeleteTo start, Madeline Faber reports that the High Ground will be reporting about Memphis and she invites people to come into the office and directly SHAPE the way in which the city will be portrayed/ share stories. This reminds me a lot of the CBPR and the methods they used to conduct their research. As we read, the CBPR would include community members directly in their studies. The High ground, Rather than treating the community like a laboratory, Faber is actually inviting the community to help shape the story. This to me feels like a method of citizen journalism.
However, as I continued reading I felt more like the journalism shifted to a more engaged approach. A prime example of this would be when Cole Bradley describes how Memphis has the largest population overweight kids in the country. The article therefore frames the story by describing an issue. It moves on to explain how the city is moving towards creating an environment, in which the children can learn about these issues and affect change. The School Community Partnered with gardeners and entrepreneurs to help teach the community about ways to garden, lead healthier life styles and even to work to create a farmers market! Furthermore, Bradley includes a key point in the story, which is when the community faced a challenge — the school discovered they didn’t have the proper insurance to sell the food they worked so hard to grow. So, Bradley uses an engaged technique which is ENABLING the reader to take action/ work with a problem. In this specific instance, Bradley explains how they worked around the problem rather than giving up.
One of the articles is entitled ‘What smart neighborhoods can learn from The Heights’. The article is set up in a way from the very beginning in which the reader knows they will walk away having learned something, and be able to take action — a key part of engaged journalism. This article goes on to explain the different ways other communities in similar situations can improve. The article includes separate sections with subtitles “passing on the passion”, “and collective effort”, introducing ways in which other communities can improve, and then by diving deeper into those topics as the article moves on. Therefore, it sets the reader up to move forward, and take action.
Engaged journalism would be a smart technique to use in our project due to the sensitive nature of it. Discussing guns and schools can be an extremely emotionally draining, and triggering, topic and I think it’s important that we as a class are enabling our viewers/readers to move on feeling they have something to do. Without using an engaged technique, I personally feel it would be unethical to send our readers/viewers forward. Thus, by using an engaged technique, we can inform but also set people up to affect change throughout the country, rather than leaving them feeling helpless.
I would also just like to add that I am very interested in exploring more the fine differences between activist journalism and engaged journalism, after hearing Laura's opinion on activist journalism in class today. I would like to gain a more clear differentiation between the two.
DeleteAlthough it's tempting to decide that The High Ground project belongs within a single category, it's most appropriately categorized within several of these disciplines of journalism. The project is engaged in that it hosts open newsrooms for the community. It's traditional in the style of reporting, of going to different places within the city and telling their story, without necessarily using the community's help. It's citizen journalism also in that the newsroom is open to everyone, and that citizens can participate in broadcast interviews. This also goes in hand with civic journalism, in that members of the community are attempting to better their community through legislative or local government action.
ReplyDeleteThe entire project just feels so personal. From interviews to descriptions of events, the journalists make you feel like a member of the community when you're reading. Themes of "small but mighty" when describing projects of community betterment engage readers in a way that traditional journalism, as practiced, often cannot. "And while the Mitchell Heights Neighborhood Association is small — there are currently only three core members including Merriweather — it’s built community gardens and a pocket park, thrown huge celebrations, decreased crime and blighted properties, and birthed what is likely Memphis’ only minority-owned plant nursery."
But that's not the whole story. The introduction to The Heights is one of traditional journalism, taking the reader through history of the community, dating back to the 1870s. That's pure traditional journalism right there- research and database collection to put together a full picture of a community that's on a steady rise.
I'd love to utilize some of their strategies in order to enhance our own project, but given our time frame it's a little out of the question. The idea of having open doors to have people come collaborate is a great idea, but it would be tough to get people involved that quickly. The best way we can emulate The High Ground is by getting into community spaces and serving them, telling their story. That garden story is a great example of a community project that lots of people probably wouldn't know about unless there was a story like that. Maybe there are some fun community projects in the Springs that we don't know about- maybe some groups are organizing events in the name of stopping guns in schools, or just overall guns.
-Michael Fitzhugh Gorman
DeleteOne of the articles that outlines the history and climb of The Heights traces the historical events around Memphis with their social implications as well as quotes from current community members about the present-day implications. I would characterize this approach as engaged journalism with an emphasis on allowing citizens to have a voice in the publication. This article essentially made a timeline of the area’s developments coupled and extended upon by other data and empirical data from that time as well as a plan for the future of the community. This approach was both holistic and an engaged way to access both empirical and anecdotal evidence. The specificity of details like the ones included in Bradley’s article about the student-led farmers market represent the true engagement with the citizens in this community. The author was clearly in constant active conversation with the young gardeners, as he included specific comments about even the most specific of details. Bradly puts this farmers market in the greater perspective of the obesity in Shelby County as well as the desire to teach the next generation to engage in community outreach. This effort provides a mental break for students facing hard home lives and allows students “limited by poverty and food insecurity” to have an outlet through cultivating healthy and sustainable gardens. So much of the rhetoric surrounding the writings from High Ground emphasize what we’ve been discussing in class about how to be an effective engaged journalist and how to employ strategies to ensure writing with communities instead of writing about them. I think we can utilize their technique for our project because we will undoubtedly encounter empirical data that is pertinent to our analysis of school shootings to utilize, but I think a strong focus can be on the impacts on individuals through personal experiences and community engagement.
ReplyDeleteWhat I found to be particularly interesting about the mission of Higher Ground was to provide greater and more well-rounded context about the neighborhoods of Memphis, and to highlight where the city is going. This mission seems to be focused more on engaged journalism as on their about us section they write, “we seek to rebalance the news so that Memphians are exposed to stories that help them understand the city’s challenges and better understand that there are people in every neighborhood across Memphis innovating for solutions.” However, I am hesitant to just assign a label to what they're reporting actually is, as if that is all encompassing. I think that throughout this class we have recognized that there is specific aspects of traditional journalism as well as engaged journalism that are helpful, accomplishing different things. We need to be able to incorporate both, and I think that Higher Ground is doing just that.
ReplyDeleteI think that they are employing traditional techniques in the sense of doing investigative work, trying to uncover untold trends. As stated earlier, they hope to provide important context about certain neighborhoods in Memphis, which I also think is a component of traditional journalism. At the same time, they are reporting while walking the sidewalks, letting community members provide the information. I think another thing that sets Higher Ground apart is the attempt to avoid sensationalist news coverage. The article about Mitchell Heights Neighborhood Association was incredibly impactful, filled with important information about the associations impact and their founders. This was only because the over sensationalized story of an underdeveloped, potentially crime-ridden area was not the angle. It focused solely on problem-solving and is incredibly empowering to any readers who hopes to make a difference.
Sam Pfeifer
DeleteHigh Ground News uses investigative and engaged techniques to tell a story about a neighborhood. The agency hosts a community newsroom to hear from members of the community about their questions, ideas for stories, and experiences. This is an engaged technique that we've already talked about using as part of the social outreach project. A led discussion that is a safe space to learn from others, ask questions, and share opinion and beliefs is a way for us to foster community led learning and engagement with this issue. This seems to be a method of engaged journalism and civic journalism. I would like to clarify the distinction between these.
ReplyDeleteThe neighborhoods are covered using different forms of media such as video and photo series, which we can also use as tools to tell the story about guns. Just like the dynamic Heights neighborhood, the story of guns in schools is an evolving story that will be best told if it is created with the community. Other articles in this series read as more traditional and describe the goings on in the neighborhoods and give some figures. This kind of info seems to be derived from a more simple investigative lens, but reading about the process used by the journalists and the community events, it is clear that the journalists also use engaged techniques. Focus groups were used to determine the main concerns citizens had for the neighborhood. Focus groups could be an effective way to determine community members' main concerns about gun violence, or to discuss problem solving. Investigative articles clearly tapped into the knowledge of community members, which of course we should do in our projects as well.
High Ground News took an engaged approach to what reads like traditional journalism. The reporting style of the articles seems very similar to a newspaper with quotes, clear purpose, and a factual sounding writing style. Cole Bradley’s reporting in articles such as, ‘Small but mighty: Resident-led development improves Mitchell Heights’ does not immediately seem to show any knowledge that an “outsider” reporter would not be able to gather. However, phrases like “plenty of youth and passion” coupled with bright photography give the reader a sense that Bradley seems more attached to the neighborhood than a simple newspaper report. And in fact, he was. Bradley borrowed many practices from engaged journalism that would have connected him more to his subjects. He hosted community events, met with members of the community and spent a long period of time interacting with the neighborhood. High Ground News is a good example of how the format of journalism can change to be more responsible while still creating a similar end product.
ReplyDeleteWhile not necessarily relayed in most of Bradley’s writing, many of the techniques used by him would be helpful to adapt for our project in a more time sensitive manner. Bradley used set weekly meeting times where community members could come in and pitch ideas. While this strategy is not possible on the block plan, we could tap into pre-existing networks. Finding an already open conversation would still give us direction as to what people are interested in. Furthermore, I think the engaged part of Bradley’s story really showed through his media incorporations. Showing the different pictures and videos gave the article much more of a community feel and added a new dimension to the story. When designing anything for a public audience, I think it could be a good idea to represent the story we want to tell not just through one medium, but through many different streams.
Community based projects can be a very complicated subject and the journalism surrounding High Ground struggles with many of these questions. Although many of their articles seem to be more typical, as they are written by journalists themselves, the stories they tell remain community centered. Perhaps what struck me most about their approach to news within this area was their commitment to truly being with the people living and working on these projects. Journalists, in the traditional sense, rarely do such thorough and almost ethnographic work while writing stories. Laura Frank illuminated how rare it is to have “beat” writers that focus on a few specific areas of interest within the world of journalism. This has resulted in shorter timelines which have become the new norm within many newsrooms in America. I was impressed with how these journalists were able to immerse themselves in The Heights while writing and researching their pieces.
ReplyDeleteAlthough the articles seemed to be traditionally written there are important lessons for us to learn in terms of our engaged journalism practice. We should mimic the intentional time these journalists took to understand what is happening in this area. Through my limited experience with sociological ethnographic research, it is important to gain trust in a slow and responsible way in order to honor the communities you are trying to better understand. Through engaging community stakeholders and taking the time to center voices of underrepresented demographics (such as young students) High Ground seems to be verging on, while not completely embodying the spirit of, engaged journalism. Finally, by taking four months to complete various journalism projects, it shows a sustained effort by this news outlet to this community.
In terms of how we can learn from these articles, I believe it is always important to be very thoughtful and people centered while doing engaged journalism. Through following up and concluding the project in a meaningful way with a reception, High Ground graciously tied up the project for the community. Additionally, they noted that although their specific focus would end in the community, the journalists would continue reporting on the area. Perhaps in our projects we could have some sort of sustained project or impact so we do not leave anyone without a solid feeling of closure or continuous support. Finally, High Ground was able to very purposely involved and interact with many important community stakeholders in The Heights. From neighborhood organizations to community gardens to design studios, these journalists were able to get a diverse sample of groups in this area in an intentional way. I believe we should try to mimic this intentionality and intersectionality with all of our community partners during this block!
High Ground News seems to use a combination of engaged and traditional journalism to report on community issues in Memphis. The way in which High Ground combines the two practices is with community-driven stories. Many of these stories started with forums and events hosted by the news source, wherein citizens would come to them. In this way it would seem that High Ground could be categorized as civic journalism, however often times the journalists would attend block parties and community organized events, which in my opinion is engaged journalism at its best. In most of the articles, High Ground is reporting on inspiring stories and community action rather than solution-based articles on problems within the community. An example of this is “what smart neighborhoods can learn from the Heights”, wherein the reporters shared how citizens were working to better their community. The community garden story is also civic journalism because it’s sharing inspiring stories from within the community, however when the community wanted a greenway, journalists made community input a priority rather than having an architect design it.
ReplyDeleteShowing up to community events and asking questions seems to be really effective and civic journalism is something I would love to explore within our class. I think the article “facts and feelings” is a great templet for our course and the idea we had about myth-busting gun violence facts especially surrounding schools.
As others have also stated, I think the High Ground journalism must be taken in context. Each individual piece might be classified differently, depending on the focus of the article (ie, the history piece is very traditional, while many of the other pieces appear more civic). However, what I think is the important distinction that actually makes High Ground’s journalism engaged and not civic is that the journalists hosted weekly meetings in the community center. While these meetings weren’t directly talked about, I would label the journalism as engaged journalism based off of the assumption that High Ground used these meetings to form connections, find their stories, and find what the community was passionate about and wanted to be shared. These meetings had a consistent time and place, and were open invite to the whole community. Additionally, High Grounds had community closure / follow-up at the end by having a reception and photo gallery to show what they had done within their time. So, while each individual story may not directly appear to be engaged journalism, noting the specificity in the stories and the individuals that were highlighted leads to me to think this is engaged journalism. The one concern I had with this distinction is that I would have liked to see more opportunities to engage. The needs of the community where often mentioned, but no way to fulfill those needs was included (even just a link to donate or volunteer).
ReplyDeleteWhile I think their technique was phenomenal and hugely valuable to read about, I don’t think we can fully employ it. The main crux of their technique, in my opinion, is the length of time that High Grounds was on-the-ground. They reported on and met weekly with the community for three months, which I think builds a much stronger understanding and relationship with the community than we will be able to achieve. I also think that having such deep historical knowledge is hugely important to understanding the present day stories, which is something we don’t have time to collect. That being said, there are several distinct choices that High Grounds made that we can utilize, such as having community meetings within the community, having follow-up with the people they worked with, and highlighting individual issues that are important to a set of individuals, and therefore are relevant to the whole community.
The form of journalism employed throughout On the Ground In the Heights’s articles reflects an interesting approach to a project that is deeply engaged. As it was mentioned in the podcast, most of the employees of Heights CDC are residents of the Heights themselves. As a result, it would not be unreasonable to expect the articles that we read to read as pieces of citizen journalism. However, this was not the case. If I had not listened to the first introductory podcast I would have perceived that the authors were removed from the story and the events that they detail. The third person perspective that the authors consistently used causes the pieces read as traditional journalism. However, one noticeable break from traditional journalism comes at the end of some of the articles. The calls for community action and involvement in the reported community development are more reflective of citizen journalism. A second break from traditional journalism comes in the topics that the articles cover. While the approach that the authors take is traditional, the topics are not ones which one would normally expect to read in a daily newspaper. The scale of the projects is relatively small. National newspapers don’t typically cover projects of that scale. That High Ground serves as its own publisher and exists as a stand alone site enables this. It can present engaged/civic journalism as traditional because that is the sole purpose of their site.
ReplyDeleteWhile throughout this course we have been defining different forms of journalism to get a better understanding of how we could use them, High Ground’s approach and stories seem to demonstrate that the lines are more obscured. Their articles may come off as traditional journalism in style, but their approach and intent toward what they’re covering seems to lean more toward civic journalism and for some articles, engaged. They make a good effort at covering stories in areas which other, more high level news companies may not wish to cover.
ReplyDeleteHowever, with the homepage of their website stating “Memphis deserves sidewalk level journalism”, you’d expect it may lean more towards citizen journalism, with the stories being guided by the population of these areas “in the Heights”. Unfortunately, I feel some articles were sincerely lacking in citizen input, explaining why I say “sometimes” engaged, but primarily civil, in their attempt to shed light on these underrepresented and often ignored low-income neighborhoods. The quotes in these articles seem to mainly come from specific community leaders, and with the message and mission which they brand themselves with, I’d expect more from everyday citizens. Nevertheless, I respect their effort to shed light on the people’s experiences and cater their stories towards what their audience needs to hear.
I would say (without being completely certain) that the reporting done by High Ground News is most close to civic journalism. I say civic journalism mostly because it appears to have traits of both engaged and traditional, and civic journalism seems to be somewhere between the two. After all of our talk about engaged journalism, the reporting initially struck me as traditional as it was written by professionals and drew on knowledge of professionals, such as historians. Further, it did have some of the removed, reporting feel as opposed to engaged conversation-initiating type. However, what convinces me that it isn’t purely traditional journalism is that it has an extreme local focus that informs the community in a manner that equips them to grapple with their local issues. For example, I really enjoyed ending the history of “The Heights” with a discussion of the new proposed greenway and efforts to make the city greener. This leaves citizens feeling empowered and as political actors not merely spectators. I found this as well in the article on the farmers’ market, because it portrays citizens as active participants in their community and again has the extreme local focus.
ReplyDeleteI would like to try to emulate the approach of High Ground News in focusing on local communities rather than only the broader national debate in order to showcase what individuals are doing rather than only large national groups. As part of this, it could be useful to place great emphasis on ongoing movements and efforts to contribute to change. This would strengthen our effort to empower citizens and allow them to be political actors.
HIghGround's reporting technique is clearly engaged in that it is deeply place-based and mindful of the nuances of that identity through exploration of the social and economic history of the area. One benefit of engaged journalism that particularly stood out to me was HIghGround's (slightly ironic) lack of condescension, in that the way they wrote and reported was accesible to anyone, and clearly came from attending events, meeting community officials and regualr citizens alike, and being honest yet positive about the heritage and future of the town. Local's comments underneath it showed how right they got it, and how important it was for people to see their home presented in that way. While this newspaper didn't go so far as to suggest practical, actionable steps, they did help people see a bigger picture, and improved their awareness of events and initiatives in their hometown in a way that didn't cause anxiety and allowed readers to help if they wanted to or could. The photos were also clearly not stock photos, but an accurate depiction of community life. All in all, this is gentle, positive journalism that keeps people informed without aliwnating anyone, or pitting them against each other, or making them anxious, and that's rare and valuable indeed. We as a group can learn from that sensitivity when tackling this deeply sensitive topic, in that we can be careful that our word choice doesn't alienate anyone, and that out choice of content always includes context and perspective and an empowering mention of things they can do to help themselves and others.
ReplyDelete