| Topics: Civic Communication The Indianapolis Star The Indianapolis Star has run two civic journalism projects, one in 1993 on race relations and one on the 1994 election. The week-long series, "Blacks and Whites: Can We Get Along?" involved polling citizens on their racial attitudes and using the results to determine stories; working cooperatively on coverage with a local TV-network affiliate; and sponsoring community forums. The election project included an issues poll, in-depth issues coverage and a voter registration drive. The Star also stepped up coverage of state legislative races and revamped its voter guide. Contents Blacks and Whites: Can We Get Along?
Elections 1994 Case studies 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. Indianapolis Star (newspaper)
P.O. Box 147
307 N. Pennsylvania St.
Indianapolis, IN 46206-0145
(317) 633-1240 (phone)
(317) 633-9423 (fax) Ownership
Central Newspapers
No. newsroom employees: 148 Circulation
240,000 (daily)
400,000 (Sunday)
circulation area (population)
Statewide, primarily central Indiana; (3 million; Indianapolis and Marion Co., 1 million) Initiative
Blacks & Whites: Can We Get Along? Dates
February 21-28, 1993; followed by community forums, poll updates and follow up reporting in 1994. Lead Editor
Mark Nichols Executive Editor
Frank Caperton Blacks and Whites: Can We Get Along? On the heels of the Mike Tyson rape trial in Indianapolis in 1992, the Star commissioned a major poll on racial attitudes (its first non-election poll) and designed a week-long reporting project around the results. Story assignments were not made until results were in. Comprised of more than three dozen stories over a week, and coupled with a week-long series on the same topics by the local ABC affiliate, the series generated close to 1,000 calls to the newspaper. Stories reflected citizen experience, rather than relying on expert opinion, a major departure for the newspaper. Along with its stories, the series also directed readers to additional community resources and to books on the topics. A subsequent community forum sponsored and moderated by the paper drew more than 500 people; five more were planned through the spring of 1994. Publication of results from a 1994 poll update coincide with the first anniversary of the package's publication. When and how did this initiative get started?
Major commitment by newsroom management. The decision was based on the city's racial history and racially polarized conversations in the community during and after the Tyson trial. What are the goals of the initiative?
To get members of the community talking about race relations issues. The goal was not to advocate any specific action, but to encourage citizens of the community to seek solutions - of their own devising - to problems of race, whether the solutions were to increase and/or improve the quality of formal conversations between blacks and whites, create organizations to address disparities in housing and jobs, etc. What does the initiative entail?
Planning began in mid-1992 for the series, with assignment alternatives built into the plan so that stories would be built around survey results. The survey itself, valid to within 5 percentage points for white respondents and 3 for black, was conducted in early January 1993 by a research facility at the local university. Publication of the series began just two weeks after results were in, thanks to an intensive effort involving up to half the reporting and photography staff. Each day focused on a topic (history of Indianapolis race relations, schools, workplace, housing, social patterns, business including the media, governance and the future of race relations in the city). Pertinent poll results accompanied the stories. WRTV's stories covered the same topics, though on different days and from different angles. The first of the community forums sponsored by the paper was held immediately after initial publication, drawing 500 participants. Five monthly forums began in January 1994, each focused around a topic of the series. The first two drew well, with about 300 people attending. (Others had yet to be held at the date of this writing.) After an hour of initial conversations, participants break into small groups to discuss potential action in response to the issue being discussed, then reconvene to talk about recommendations before the full forum. Forum facilitators are volunteers recommended by Star staff; the March seminar on workplace issues will be led by the executive director of the state commission on civil rights. Star staffers help lead small group discussions. How many people are working on it?
Twenty-eight staffers contributed directly to initial package. What does it look like in the newspaper?
The package always began on 1A and played in both the A section and throughout the paper. It was impossible to miss the series, which included 4-6 stories a day along with numerous photos, played big, and graphics. Response to the Initiative In the newsroom:
Through gratified by the ongoing community response to the project, staff members were eager to see movement from talk to action by early 1994. "We were wondering, do people need to keep talking? The conversation, it's getting fairly repetitious in some cases," Nichols said. "But still, you're getting 200 or 300 people to a forum at one time, and they're different people and they want to talk; that's still encouraging in a sense. We're in the process, not trying to make something happen, but hoping something will come out of the issues we've raised. "However, Nichols volunteered, the community may need more talk before moving on to fashion specific remedies. Positive on polling: "We had been so much in the mode of getting an expert's opinion on something, and talking to three or four people, and putting together a story, that this was refreshing," said Nichols, who has worked at the Star 14 years. Negative about TV: From the outset, folks in the newsroom were wary of working with a TV news staff, reflecting a common institutional attitude among print journalists. The paper's reporters were especially uncomfortable with the TV reporters' use of hidden cameras on stories. "A lot of people felt it was a cheap way of covering an important issue," Nichols said. When the Star's TV critic reflected that sentiment in his column, a TV broadcast in turn criticized the column. Newsroom wags dubbed the contentious atmosphere "Media Relations: Can We All Get Along?" Elements incorporated into regular newsroom routines and/or culture:
Managing Editor Frank Caperton established a diversity committee to look at the way minorities and women are portrayed in the paper. The committee audits news coverage and publishes a newsletter; in March 1994, a group from the community will meet with the committee to look at the paper together and to discuss perceptions about coverage that affected minorities and women. In the community:
"In the end, the best responses we got were from people who said, 'Hey, I talked with this white guy the other day about this; we'd never talked about it before.' Or, 'I took this black guy to lunch,'" Nichols said. "In the end, people started talking, and they may not have been happy with what they found out, but at least they started." Community reaction when the series was launched seemed to reflect a pent-up demand for such conversations. In a response Nichols credits to WRTV's publicity about the series, people began calling the Star to talk about race relations a full week before stories ran. After publication, Star staff couldn't keep up with the phones. In the first four days alone, more than 600 people called a reader response line to record their views; Nichols said hundreds more called the newsroom. Among political leaders:
Negligible. Did any outside group pick up the newspaper's initiative and carry it further?
Although the series has generated a great deal of interest in various community organizations, they have yet to come together to develop a common vision or goals. But actions are taking place on an ad hoc basis. After the forum on education, for example, a group of participants agreed to talk to school board members about implementing a multicultural school curriculum. "But there's nothing like a blue-ribbon commission to take this to the mayor or the governor," Nichols said. What's next:
Three more community forums are scheduled, through May 1994. A range of other possibilities for follow-up are under consideration by the newspaper. Indianapolis Star, Elections 1994 After a round of newsroom meetings devoted to a discussion about the decay of civic life and public culture, the Star launched an elections project modeled on the Charlotte Observer's. Work included an issues poll cosponsored by a local TV-network affiliate, in-depth issues coverage and a voter registration drive. The Star also stepped up coverage of state legislative races and revamped its voter guide, moving publication the Thursday before elections, rather than the Monday before. When and how did this initiative get started?
Plans to cover the elections using a public journalism model first were discussed in spring 1994, after the paper used a citizen-drive approach to cover race relations in the city. What are the goals of the initiative?
"To let readers know we're their partners, not the partners of the governor and all those other folks," Caperton said. What does the initiative entail?
The initiative began with a series of newsroom meetings about the rationale for public journalism, with discussion about the decay of public life and civic culture. (See below under newsroom culture.) The reporting itself was modeled on Charlotte's 1992 elections effort, beginning with a summer 1994 issues poll co-sponsored by the local CBS affiliate. After Labor Day, the paper published 10 days of scene-setting reports, explaining the project's rationale and detailing five top concerns identified in the issues poll. Continuing reports paired questions from citizens and journalists in a grid with responses from candidates, with a new emphasis on state legislative elections. Citizen commentary and questions were drawn from audiotext lines and from questions raised by poll respondents. A voter guide, published the Thursday before elections, summarized material from the grids. At the same time, the paper and its TV partner launched a voter registration drive, emphasizing registration in coverage and setting up registration stations in malls and similar locations. What does it look like in the newspaper?
Most main stories started on 1A with jumps inside. Issues grids with citizen comments and voter-candidate Q&A's ran mostly in the local section. The grids—labeled with a "Hoosier Voices" sig—were charts with a picture of the voter and a two-paragraph discussion of the topic at hand. The newspaper and its TV partner used similar sigs on their projects to maximize cross-promotion. Response to the Initiative In the newsroom:
Staff members working on elections coverage like the approach, Caperton said. "I suppose there may be someone sitting on fence who thinks this is a bunch of hooey and it will go away, but there are a lot more questions from our people about how we take this past the realm of politics." Elements incorporated into regular newsroom routines and/or culture:
Caperton seeded the newsroom with a series of meetings at the outset of the project, discussing the elections effort itself and the rationales for the approach—low voter involvement, political disenfranchisement and the general erosion of civic life skills. Led by Caperton, the city editor and the assistant city editor in charge of political coverage, sessions were held three times, throughout the day, to give staff members with different schedules the chance to attend. In the community:
Acquaintances have approached Caperton at church and in other social settings to compliment the project. Voter registration is up; the local elections supervisor credits the media campaign. Among political leaders:
Political operatives grumbled that the paper wasn't covering "real politics," Caperton said. Citing an example, Caperton said the Star's sister paper gave major play to a controversy about whether the incumbent U.S. Senator owned or rented the dog featured in his folksy campaign spots; the Star played the story small and inside. What's next:
Caperton plans to integrate an approach centered around citizen concerns into everyday political coverage. Case studies written by Lisa Austin, Assistant Director of the Project on Public Life and the Press, March1994. Lisa is also a member of the CPN Journalism editorial team. More Information Project on Public Life and the Press
New York University
Department of Journalism
10 Washington Pl.
New York, NY 10003
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