We all know how to write the black and white. In fact, it's a knee-jerk reaction. Karen Weintraub, a young civic journalist at the Virginian Pilot in Norfolk recently described to journalists in our Cincinnati workshop an exercise she tries to practice to keep herself from doing knee-jerk journalism. She steps backs, pulls out a sheet of paper and tries to figure out all the parties she can think of who might have an interest in this particular issues. It's amazing, she says, what a different lens it brings to your story.
Civic journalism is about helping citizens be citizens.
And sometimes these days, they need a little help. They need a road map. So when the Charlotte Observer wrote about crime in nine of that city's most violent neighborhoods, it not only did computer-assisted reporting and crunched crime numbers. More than 1,000 people from all over Charlotte responded. Civic journalism is about recognizing that journalists, despite all our good intentions have preconceived notions and biases.