| Topics: Civic Communication Florida
Issues '94 Six Florida newspapers and Florida NPR affiliates are cooperating on issues coverage of the 1994 campaign for governor, jointly underwriting a statewide survey of citizen concerns used to establish a baseline for election coverage. Candidates were interviewed in depth on issues that citizens identify in the poll as most pressing. The results are presented in detail in each medium, with a different paper's team reporting one of several major issues takeouts. The papers also are cooperating on weekly updates on these issues over the course of the primary and general election campaign. 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. Newspaper's involved -- - The Miami Herald
- The St. Petersburg Times
- the Florida Times Union
- the Tallahassee Democrat
- The Bradenton Herald
- The Boca Raton News
- National Public Radio through 12 Florida affiliates
(305) 376-3589 (Weitzel)
(800) 727-6472 x3589 (Weitzel)
(305) 376-8943 or 2287 (Weitzel fax) Initiative
Issues 94 Dates
1994 through November Lead Editor
Pete Weitzel, Senior managing editor, Miami Herald When and how did this initiative get started?
Editors from two of the papers discussed the possibility when charged with developing action plans at a 1993 public journalism seminar. Joint political coverage has precedent in Florida; in the 1960s, the Herald and the St. Petersburg Times had a joint capital bureau and also shared the costs of research on a multiyear study of campaign contributions to Florida legislators. Also aiding the project, none of the papers involved serves the same market. What are the goals of the initiative?
To make sure political discussion in a crucial statewide election follows the real concerns of Florida's citizens. What does the initiative entail?
With input from all media participants, the poll will be designed by Herald and Times staff who have survey experience, and administered by a Washington-based consultant with Florida polling experience. The survey data and data analysis will be made available to all participants. Coverage on given issues will be divvied up among participating newspapers; the generic story on a given topic will be made available in advance to other participants by the newspaper charged with producing the basic material on that topic. Most likely, other newspapers will localize the generic piece. Candidate interviews will be conducted by a selected team, and also may be taped for use by the NPR affiliates. How many people are working on it?
Each paper designates a lead editor and selects reporters to produce the issue stories and/or localize the generic piece. Response to the Initiative In the newsroom:
Political writers have been uniformly enthusiastic about the idea itself; however, Weitzel said he expects "plenty of good discussion" on the question of who conducts candidate interviews. With the project still in planning stages, pool reporting routines have yet to be developed. Questions remain about whether the interviews will be conducted by both political reporters and beat reporters with expertise on a given subject (e.g., environment), the number of papers represented in the interviews, and the number of issues covered in the interviews. "What if you have three political reporters and the people with expertise on that issue, and then what if you were dealing with multiple issues in an interview? You'd have seven or eight people right there, and if you had to have a rep from each paper, it would really get unwieldy," Weitzel said. What's next:
The coalition is still seeking grant funding for the survey. If it is obtained, more newspapers and, possibly, television stations, will be added to the team. Original team members agreed they would add more participants if such participants did not increase costs for the project. 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 Local network affiliates (and an independent Spanish-language station in Miami) in the participating cities teamed up with the original partners to fund the survey in exchange for access to the survey results; for the most part, television partners develop coverage independent of the original coalition. Partners did team up on candidate interviews, and used the leverage of team reporting to convince the major primary contenders in each party to agree to three-hour interview sessions. Some skepticism about the value of the effort remains, even among participating editors. For example, the political editor at Miami questions whether any governor can effectively address citizen concerns about family and moral values; in St. Petersburg, the paper's editor scoffs at the idea of ignoring stories about what Knight-Ridder editors call "gimmicks," such as candidates challenging one another to drug tests. And the effort has not entirely moved coverage away from "horse-race" aspects of the campaign; such stories do show up in the participating papers. At the same time, the effort has expanded the focus of political reporting and given rise to new coverage initiatives at participating papers. Among the most interesting is an effort at the St. Petersburg Times' Tampa newsroom, which produces an independent Tampa edition. Using the statewide poll's sample from the local county, the paper will focus on the four issues of most concern to area voters: education, crime, government waste and growth. The effort includes a partnership with the local CBS affiliate and four community meetings. During the two months prior to the election, coverage of each issue will follow a two-week cycle, beginning with a 1A Sunday overview and a weekend TV report based on a pre-publication outline of the story. On the following Tuesday, a "focus group" of 10 to 15 people drawn from the survey sample will discuss the issue, led by moderators trained in the Kettering Foundation's National Issues Forum workshops. At the end of each meeting, the group will draw up questions for candidates. Both TV and the paper will cover the meetings as daily stories. Subsequently, reporters will interview candidates, using questions from the meetings, then produce stories to run the Sunday following the initial overview. The effort is being coordinated by Marty Rosen (800-333-7505 x3384), a veteran reporter who says her longtime disdain for politics and political coverage was transformed when she started learning about public journalism efforts to bring the citizens' voice to bear on the process.
- LA, 7/94 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 | 
