They focus on the impact of government decisions among students, or people in a particular neighborhood. So rather than just counting government meeting stories, we undertook a much more relaxed approach that allowed reporters broad license to make reporting about government action more interesting. If only a quarter of the story s time or space related to a government action, we counted it as a civic contribution. How the index was constructed This index measures reporting on the actions of those at the controls of our government at all levels, but not those who carry out their decisions. We exclude routine actions of police, schools, fire departments and other arms of government, unless expressly political .
Journalism ethics asks for constant scrutiny of how our government is behaving.
So such stories ought to be a mainstay of coverage. However, they need not consume the majority of news space or time.