The concept

By David Fortier

Introduction

It’s a mouthful: Citizen-driven community journalism. It is also the driving force behind this website. CDCJ has grown from an idea I proposed for my master’s project at Kent State as the final step in earning my journalism educator degree. It sprung from my experience watching our local newspaper falling on hard times.

Obsessing over the demise of this local institution led me to research what has been happening to community newspapers across the country. To say the least, the experience was eye opening. The first thing I learned was that this experience with my community newspaper is not unique. This is information can be found in my proposal and final papers here. (link to papers!)

Below:

Outcomes

The project proposed that using an ethic as the focus, that sharing this research and providing some guidance anyone to a group of volunteers, they would be motivated by experience to do one of three things:

  1. choose to influence positive change in their local news media through engagement with existing local news media;
  2. choose to develop local news presence of their own; essentially,
  3. choose to create their own standards for good coverage and drive change.

That is where the idea of citizen-driven community journalism originates It’s important to note here in the introduction that this website, The Bristol Edition (TBE), has evolved from and will be guided by these deliberations.

Citizen-driven journalism

The mantra here in these webpages is that citizens must step up; in other words, one conclusion from the research and project is that people cannot wait for local news media to fill the void without some prompting or, at least, some prodding to remind them of what their primary reason for existing is: To provide necessary information to shore up our democratic way of life. The answer from project participants is that a sure fire way to do this is to create a citizen-driven model for the marketplace.

No longer does news originate solely from journalists, through a delivery system controlled by those who could afford production and circulating services. With the advent of social media, as one commentator, Aidan White of the Ethical Journalism Network, said, citizens are committing their own acts of journalism every day.

Ethical journalism defined

Ethical Citizen-Driven Community Journalism (CDCJ) can be broken down into these components:

Ethical–This term may be redundant because all worthwhile journalism adheres to and abides by codes of ethics.

Citizen-driven–this journalistic effort puts the citizen first, not a citizen’s pocketbook or clicks. By first, the goal is that the citizen is not only a passive recipient of the news, but a partner, who not only evaluates its worth but also produces journalism. Either way, the citizen and the role of the citizen in a democracy is foremost. Both require citizens to take action rather than remaining passive recipients of information.

Community–Each community is different and at different times its news needs may shift. It is up to the participants in this project, who know their community intimately, to decide what news they need. That is what participants from Bristol did here. That is what others might do in their communities

Journalism–For matters of this project, journalism is what readers, in this instance, who participate in this project, decide. Of course, their decisions are predicated by an understanding of the ethics and the ethical choices journalists attend to daily, as well as the best practices of journalists.

It’s complicated

News is news, gossip is gossip, and conspiracy theories are conspiracy theories, except for in real time, as they come tumbling out of social media 24/7, and are easily confused, conflated, and contradicted. We are learning something about this after the 2016 election and Russian bots. Social media powerhouses here in the United States are not innocent bystanders either.

At the crux of the matter is the citizen, not the “citizen” so often paid homage to, to squeeze out a few more dollars from or to get a vote out of and on and on, but the “citizen” who is meant to participate in and sustain our way of life.

This project carves out territory for citizens of our democracy to embrace their birthright and develop their own news sensibilities and use what resources they have at their disposal in this new era of news to exert their needs over the many competitors for their attention–as long as they take the time to learn about ethics–which participants did.

The role of ethics

The project promotes one idea: as citizens come to understand the ethical standards behind the best journalism, they will be better positioned to judge local news coverage and more informed about the consequences of producing their own journalism. In this way they will reassert themselves as important members of their communities.

Ethical guidelines remind us that journalists are not robots, or bots, mindlessly producing “news.” Journalists make decisions with every story they write. The area journalists populate is treacherous.

They make errors. They fall short of their desired goals. But they learn from their experience and attempt to avoid making the same mistakes again—but they are compelled by ethical standards, to provide an accounting of their corrections, something that social media does not. More often than not members of the reputable news media are providing more and more transparency, in other words, the workings behind their stories.

For the purposes of this project, however, the more familiar citizens are with this journalistic enterprise, the better they will be able to appreciate the effort, recognize the limitations, and push for improvement. That is what participants in the project decided.

This ethical accounting makes journalism different from social media: often, it is what makes journalism susceptible to attack. The more citizens understand this dynamic, the less susceptible they will be to attack, and the more competent, at informing themselves and those around them.

What you will find here

There are five sections that deal with one component of the project, again, that is being proposed, and that is being used to develop this citizen-driven community journalism website.

Under “Ethics as a foundation,” you will find more background on the role of ethics.

Under “Ethics in action,” you will find recommendations for setting this idea of CDCJ a reality, including instructions for developing an introductory workshop series.

Under “Ethical partnering,” you will find resources for engaging the community to promote this idea of CDCJ, following the lead of several news organizations that have taken steps in their communities.

Under “The ethical organization,” you will find recommendations for evaluating the performance of an existing news operation or one citizens might start and run on their own.

Under “Resources and tools,” you will find a variety of links to material that could be used to develop workshops, conferences, evening sessions, and exercises for a CDCJ project anywhere.

Exercises/Lessons

If lessons are not provided, links will be provided to sources of lessons or, at least, to material that can be used to create lessons. (One of the goals of the project is for others to adopt this research for their own CDCJ projects.)

Resources

Each page of this website features links to resources that anyone interested in learning more about the page theme.

For instance, this Big Think video addresses why anyone would vote against their best interests and how education is key to reversing that tendency. It is no secret that this is one of the goals of this citizen-driven community journalism project, with ethical implications of its own regarding the role of the citizen: “Why only individual thinking can reunite America | Tim Snyder.”

Recommendations

Note: In the recommendation section on each page, we provide recommendations from the participants that called for a decision regarding TBE and its future plans.

  • Our recommendation here is to read through each section, click on the links to familiarize yourself with the materials, and start thinking of ways to connect with people who might be interested in working together.
  • From there, the recommended course of action would be to read through the section on ethics, work through some of the exercises, and determine whether this budding group of citizen journalists are ready to produce their own journalism or try to affect change in some other way, including engagement with existing media.

Remember, as with its promotion of ethical thinking, this project encourages participants to determine their own course of action.

Of course, we encourage readers of this material to take very seriously the option of getting involved on some level with TBE or, if outside the geographical area TBE covers, developing their own CDCJ project for the simple reason that many of the existing news media, for whatever reasons, have not served their communities well.

Again, self-determination is critical.

What you will not find here

This project does not cover financial issues, simply because it is a volunteer project. It is completely dependent upon the good will and effort of individuals committing their time and energy and talents to its success. At one point, depending on the success of the project, participants might consider setting up a non-profit, or even a for-profit. By that time, the idea of ethics will have become part of the culture and should be able to navigate through additional burden that funding will raise.

For those interested, costs for setting up a website and using open source software to produce and maintain it, have been kept to a minimum.

These pages will not cover much if any instruction of the use of new technology. Again, once the foundation is laid, there will be plenty of opportunity to investigate new technology. We do not know how our news will be delivered in the future, but we do know that delivery is not the issue—the quality of the information that we have access to do, and as we will learn, produce ourselves is the crux of the matter.

A note of gratitude

I had the good fortune to work with several volunteers, or else this would not have taken the shape it has.

I have had the good fortune of working with dedicated professionals at Kent State. To each, I express my gratitude and thanks. This has been a tremendous experience. I hope that through this project I am able to share their enthusiasm for journalism as well as their high standard of professionalism with others.