| Topics: Civic Communication Columbus Ledger-Enquirer
Education 2000 Launched in January 1994 to move education "to the front burner" in the community, a major reporting initiative features weekly takeouts on a full range of education issues. An advisory panel of citizens meets with newspaper staff every other month to critique the reports and to help set the weekly story agenda. Following a plan developed in 1993 by staff members across the newspaper, the initiative also includes efforts to expand the paper's Newspaper in Education and local adopt-a-school programs and to enhance an existing paper-sponsored recognition program for teachers and students. A case study by Project on Public Life and the Press
New York University, Department of Journalism, 10 Washington Pl.
New York, NY 10003, (212) 998-3793 © Project on Public Life and the Press,1994. The Project is funded by a grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Columbus Ledger-Enquirer (newspaper)
P.O. Box 711
Columbus, GA 31944-1099
(706) 324-5526 (phone)
(706) 576-6290 (fax) Ownership
Knight-Ridder
No. newsroom employees: 66 FTE Circulation
55,000 (daily)
70,000 (Sunday)
Circulation area (Pop.):
Columbus/Muscogee County and Harris County, Ga.; Phoenix City, Ala.; Lee and Russell County, Ala. (250,000) Initiative
Education 2000 Dates
Early 1993-present Lead Editor
Al Johnson, executive editor When and how did this initiative get started?
In early 1993, Publisher Billy Watson convened 30-35 community leaders - in groups of five or six - to identify the community's most pressing problems. Watson was encouraged by community support. "People said, 'Do something else like Beyond 2000,' " a 1988-1990 initiative in which the paper actively convened public conversation on the community's future and helped establish a local leadership group. In the 1993 meetings, education and race relations emerged as the top priorities. The paper settled on education as a project because it encompassed race relations (the local NAACP has a suit pending against the school system) and because the paper's leaders believed the topic offered more opportunities for direct action. What are the goals of the initiative?
Editorial Page Editor Billy Winn says the object of the project is to move education to "the front burner" in the community. Al Johnson, the executive editor, defines goals broadly: "To bring attention to the successes, the failures and the factors that impact the quality and kind of education received by school-age youth in Muscogee County....To awaken the community and in general to offer solutions to whatever may be impacting education in a negative fashion." Watson, the publisher, is eager to see the project increase the newspaper's involvement in the community as a corporate citizen; that is part of his decision to involve employees from across the newsroom. As a secondary goal, Watson said, the project will help overcome the negative image any paper develops in its community by reporting controversy and "negative" news. What does the initiative entail?
Assignments range across the staff and have, so far in 1994, focused on health and learning; vocational education; school budgeting; business as a partner in education; the role of families in education; testing, the money trail in education spending; the NAACP suit spotlighting integration and desegregation issues in the community; and the disparate quality in individual schools in different parts of Columbus. Al Johnson says: "I've learned that a project like this must be a total newspaper project, not just the newsroom, and that everybody signs on early." After choosing education as a project subject in discussions with community leaders, a company-wide committee that developed the initiative encompassed staff from the newsroom, advertising, PR, marketing and newspaper in education departments. Sixteen people on a community advisory panel critique the reports - weekly at the outset, bimonthly by mid-year - and to help the paper set the weekly story agenda. This continues Watson's and Johnson's 1993 effort to bring in citizens "to tell us what they felt," said Johnson. How many people will work on it?
Contributors from the metro staff; the living staff and sports are feeding stories to the series. What does it look like in the newspaper?
"Real pretty," as one of the paper's top editors puts it. The first article ran four columns on a Sunday front page. The most recent article ran for 13 columns plus an editorial page comment. The extensive coverage is not without its risks, editors admit. "We may be asking readers to swallow a lot to digest so much detailed reporting on a subject weĠre hitting week after week," one newsroom executive says, adding that illiteracy runs very high in the metropolitan area. Nor has there been any collaboration in the project with local broadcasters to reach those who watch and listen but do not read. Response to the Initiative In the newsroom:
Because so many staff members are involved, says Johnson, "We've discovered through the project a big capacity to talk with each other. It's clear that this is a 'big' effort and people want a part of it. Ambitious reporters, especially, want to be involved." However, the project has generated some resistance from reporters who believe the paper's routine day-to-day coverage obviates a special project, but education-beat coverage is not proscribed by the project. Johnson does detect improved reporting on education. Stories reflect more thorough research and a greater depth of understanding. When the project was announced in August, it "generated more excitement and enthusiasm than anything else since I have been here," Johnson said. He is careful to delineate the boundaries of newsroom involvement, as the Beyond 2000 project had created substantial concern and wariness about editorial activism. In the community:
Johnson reports only modest changes, by March 1994, in public attention to education. But there is continuing evidence of citizen readiness to enter into newsroom discussions which, he says, are sometimes so valuable that stories can be written right out of the conversations. "In the process," Johnson notes, "the paper is getting a reputation that it really cares about education." By mid-year an offshoot of the project was the formation of "The Columbus Education Partnership," an independent steering committee for educational reform; Johnson has agreed to participate. The Chamber of Commerce has formed an "Education 2000" committee; Editorial Page Editor Billy Winn is a member of one of its subcommittees. Case study written by Lisa Austin, Assistant Director of the Project on Public Life and the Press, March 1994. Lisa is also a member of the CPN Journalism editorial team. Update "The Education Project" is moving along as strongly as ever, says Executive Editor Al Johnson. He thinks it is gradually catching on with readers, although there is not a whole lot of community response. Nor has the project prompted any major newsroom restructuring or change in response to the community. There are no teams operating on coverage, says Johnson. "We're just staying with the present way of doing things." There is still an agenda of 52 stories for the year of "The Education Project," with some sequence shifts as needed. There are advance monthly memos to the citizen advisors to alert them to the paper's project plans; they are asked to respond with corrections or suggestions. There are some indications that some reporters are keeping their distance from the project, preferring to proceed with business as usual on their traditional assignments. Johnson describes the project less in terms of "community journalism," than in terms of "just good reporting." "That's what public journalism is - good reporting," he believes.
- RCN, 5/94 More Information Project on Public Life and the Press
New York University
Department of Journalism
10 Washington Pl.
New York, NY 10003
(212) 998-3793 Back to Community Index | 
