Often it took turns that no one expected. Always, it made a difference in the community. People read it, they got involved and they helped make their world a better place. And the journalists felt like . . . There is no simple formula for answering that question.
Civic journalism is practiced differently in every community it serves.
What these projects have in common is that they did not stop at simply unloading a lot of information on their readers and considering the job done. That was only the start. They moved on to build some roles for their intended audience as active participants in solving the problem. In Portland, Maine, it meant giving ordinary citizens direct access to question candidates in a presidential election year only to see that blossom into a desire by those citizens to stick together and to do more. In Binghamton, New York, it meant inviting teams of citizens to figure out ways to resuscitate a severely depressed local economy.