AEJMC Preview: Street newspapers as outlets for new narratives on what it means to be 'poor'

It isn’t too early to start talking about AEJMC programming, is it?

With the national conference a short summer away, I thought I’d offer a bit of information on one of the panels the Community Journalism Interest Group is bringing to San Francisco.

COMJ is co-sponsoring a PF&R panel entitled “Resistance Journalism: Expression, Self-Empowerment, and the Creation of Counternarratives on Poverty Through Community Media.”

Here’s the formal panel description: 

Millions of people in the U.S. struggle with financial need and homelessness. However, news and entertainment media often ignore the lived experiences of those living in extreme poverty or cast them in condescending stereotypes that reinforce dominant ideologies about what it means to be poor, in the process reinforcing and worsening social stratification.

During this panel, scholars and activists will discuss the ways “street newspapers” and similar publications produced by the poor, who are often ignored or marginalized by mainstream media, empower writers to create their own counternarratives about poverty and advocate for change. Street newspapers, also sometimes called homeless newspapers, are urban newspapers generally written and distributed by current or former homeless individuals. 

Panelists include:

• Jennifer Friedenbach, executive director of the San Francisco Coalitionon Homelessness. The coalition publishes Street Sheet, the oldest continuously published street newspaper in the U.S.

• Lisa "Tiny" Gray-Garcia, founder of POOR Magazine, a poor people/indigenous people-led grassroots organization developed to provide media access to and advocate for people in poverty.
   
• Bob Offer-Westort, editor of Street Sheet.
   
• Paula Lomazzi, CEO of the Sacramento Homeless Organizing Committee. The committee publishes a street newspaper called the Homeward Street Journal.
   
• Dr. Cindy Vincent, assistant professor at Salem State University. Dr. Vincent’s research focuses on representations of class in the media and the role of participatory media in civic engagement and social justice.

Your humble blog post author will be the panel moderator.

I hope you will be able to join us for this interesting and important panel discussion, which is co-sponsored by COMJ and the Cultural/Critical Studies Division.

Panel Date: Sunday, Aug. 9

Panel Time:  11 a.m.

Panel at AEJMC convention examines wide range of local, online news start-ups

“Startling Start-Ups in the Business of Journalism,” a COMJIG panel at the AEJMC convention, explored a wide range of new local-news outlets, from Chicagoland to the intermountain West to rural Kentucky, and ended with a project specialist for the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation explaining what the foundation looks for as it funds news start-ups.

Rich Gordon, director of digital innovation at Northwestern University, discussed his 2010 Chicagoland study of 206 “micro-publishers,” which he defined as those not affiliated with “legacy media.” (Including the legacy-media sites, he found a total of 449 in the area.) Of the 206, only 36 were focused on particular neighborhoods or towns, which 170 were aimed at a niche audience or interest. Those included 15 run by local organizations, and many sports blogs, which “are huge” in the region, he said.

Gordon discussed several sites, including Gapers Block, which he said is a key link in the region’s “new news ecosystem” because it both links and gets links from many other sites; Evanston Now, which covers that city well and is critical of its spending; Progress Illinois, owned by the Service Employees International Union, which he said is becoming influential in the state’s political discourse; and Brown Line Media (named after a northern commuter train route), which has been the most successful at generating revenue but only breaks even.

Gordon said not all the owners want to make a business out of their site, and most are so small the will never have a dedicated advertising sales person. He referred the audience to a study by Brown Mine Media owner Mike Fourcher of why a regional advertising network for local sites failed: a long sales cycle, relatively small number of impressions and rates that were too high. But with increased networking among the sites, Gordon said, “I am quite confident that more linking will raise all boats.”

Heidi Kulicke of the Orange County Business Journal updated the audience on her September 2011 Editor & Publisher articles about six “Newspaper Trailblazers,” three online and three print.

She followed up on the latter and found that the Great Plains Examiner in Bismarck, N.D., is now selling paid subscriptions after starting as a free monthly; the Flathead Beacon in northwestern Montana, which is still subsidized by owner Maury Povich; and Eric Buskirk, who isn’t making money with the Henderson (Nev.) Press but is with another weekly in Hemet, Calif., which he rescued from closure.

Kulicke’s package of stories also looked at the Bozeman (Mont.) Magpie, the Pulaski County Daily News of Fort Leonard Wood, Mo.; and The Faster Times of New York City, all online-only publications.

Al Cross of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, based at the University of Kentucky, reported on a study that identified and analyzed local online news sites in Kentucky that were not affiliated with newspapers. He and student Richard Yarmy found 28, 18 of which were active, posting almost daily, with eight of those operated by one owner in what Cross called “a homegrown Patch” SurfKY.com. (Google map)

Yarmy’s analysis of the sites’ content found that about half the stories were from press releases, about half of those governmental; that local-government reporting was spotty; that publishers placed much importance on obituaries, especially in markets without a daily paper; and that the chain's sites tended to have more daily posts than the independent, solo sites, some of which are simple blogs not operated with the intent to make money.

Yarmy’s interviews with the owners found that most were motivated by a desire to provide a public service, and some wanted an alternative to Topix, the nationally operated network that aggregates news about localities and provides bulletin boards for local comments.

The CEO of Topix said Kentucky was the No. 1 state for traffic to the site, and Cross hypothesized that stems from the fact that Kentucky has dozens of small counties that cannot support “a newspaper worthy of the name,” so local residents turn to Topix in an effort to voice their concerns and hold local officials accountable.

Cross and Yarmy said the study should be expanded to define best practices for online community news sites, perhaps including development of a manual for them.

Amy Starlight Lawrence, a project specialist with the Knight Foundation, said Knight likes to fund community news projects that are sustainable and supported by the community, with advertising, subscriptions, single-copy sales or money from local community foundations.

Lawrence said those seeking financial support for local news sites should look to individuals for help, because only one in 10 of the philanthropic dollars in the U.S. come from foundations. She discussed a collaborative project in Macon, Ga., involving The Telegraph, Georgia Public Radio and Mercer University. UPDATE, Sept. 16: Here is a New York Times story about the project.

The PowerPoint presentations from Gordon and Cross, and a PDF of Kulicke’s article, are in a PPTX file (13 MB) that can be downloaded here.

Denver convention programming

Hello from Jacksonville!

Once again, the chipping and wheeling and dealing are over, and we have come up with a great program (we think) for August's AEJMC meeting in Denver.

Many thanks to vice head/programming Andris Straumanis for all his hard work. Now, give research head Joe Marren something to do by getting those papers ready to come in by April 1. Or volunteer to be paper reviewer.

Here is our line up for Denver:

Wednesday
10-11:30 a.m. News coverage and commentary about local government, co-sponsored with Newspaper Division
This session examines the coverage of city government bhy daily and weekly newspapers, TV and radio stations, and citizen journalism sites using a National Science Foundation sample of more than 200 cities.

1:30-3 p.m. Citizen journalism research co-sponsored with Civic and Citizen Journalism IG
This panel will share current research examining citizen journalists, their role conceptions, motivations for contributing content, training, and other areas.

5-6:30 p.m. Media ethics in my little town. Co-sponsored with Media Ethics Division
This session explores the ethical dilemmas facing journalists working in small communities and the implications for ethics educators.

Thursday
11:45 a.m. - 1:15 p.m. Refereed research
Come hear some of the great research being done in this area.

8:30 p.m.: Membership meeting
Part of it will be held in conjunction with CCJIG. Executive committee meeting to follow.

Friday
Noon: J-lab luncheon, co-sponsored with CCJIG.
Progress in the Networked Journalism project, which pairs five news organizations with at least five hyperlocal sites in their communities.

1:45-3:15 p.m. Community newspapers: Healthiest in the trade, but for how long? Co-sponsored with Newspaper Division
Smaller newspapers have not been hit as hard in this recession, and this panel looks at that and also at how smaller newsrooms will have to adapt to a 24/7 world.

3:30-5 p.m. Into the mean streets: Lab community newspapers take on tough neighborhoods. Co-sponsored with CCJIG
Four journalism programs have separately launched lab newspapers and Web sites devoted to immer-city or at-risk neighborhoods. How did they do it? Get the answers here.

(In addition to the refereed research session, we also will have slots in one of the two midday scholar-to-scholar poster sessions.)

This is a great program. I hope you'll come to Denver for it.

-- Doug

NRJ to feature special issue on "The Future of Community Journalism"

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: SPECIAL ISSUE OF NEWSPAPER RESEARCH JOURNAL FOCUSED ON "THE FUTURE OF COMMUNITY JOURNALISM"

The rapid changes in the newspaper industry have turned more focus in recent years to what appears to be one of the more stable branches of the newspaper business — small-circulation daily and weekly newspapers generally referred to as "community newspapers." In light of these developments, the Newspaper Research Journal is accepting research articles and conceptual/theoretical essays that will shed light on "The Future of Community Newspapers" for a special issue of NRJ (tentatively scheduled for the winter 2011 issue).

This call is for articles that provide insights into the modern role of community newspapers, as well as suggestions that would help community newspapers to adapt to the changing marketplace. Both social-scientific and cultural/critical approaches will be considered, as will mixed-methods approaches. Preference will be given to articles that draw upon and advance media theory, although insightful non-theoretical, descriptive studies will be considered.

Submissions will undergo NRJ's usual peer-review process, and must be original research that is not under review with any other publication (although modified conference papers will be considered). NRJ's published guidelines regarding length, citation style, and formatting of tabular material will apply. The deadline for submissions is Dec. 1, 2009.

Submissions should be sent as Microsoft Word files to guest editor Bill Reader of Ohio University. E-mail them to reader@ohio.edu.

Convergence Newsletter - special communities issue

The Convergence Newsletter is seeking contributions for its June issue on the impact of convergence and distributed journalism in communities.

We are looking for articles not only on geographic communities, but also on social and economic ones. How has the online world fostered community? Or split it apart? Or realigned it? We hear a lot about the issues of big-city dailies, but how is this playing out in smaller communities, or in communities never envisioned before?

What "convergence" are we looking for, how do we define it? We don't. We think Rich Gordon did a great job many years ago and will consider submissions in any of these areas. Likewise, this is not solely about news and journalism (as we classically define it). Technological convergence, for instance, may be forming its own social communities with their own means of information sharing. And, shifting back to the geographical for a moment, how is all this interacting with the warp and weave of community structures and life?

The June issue is part of our new realignment into topical issues. We hope to have a communities and convergence issue twice a year.

The Convergence Newsletter has about 1,000 subscribers (and growing - if you don't get it, please feel free to subscribe for free or visit our blog), is published out of the University of South Carolina and Newsplex once a month except for June and January. We call it a journal of first impression. Most pieces run from 600-1,200 words. It is not peer reviewed, but it is edited. It's an excellent place to work on the kernel of a thought that may blossom into a longer publication or to write about notable things that may not become a longer project but are just as valuable to know about. (For instance, I saw a paper for a class the other day that had a unique set of interviews with Lawrence Journal-World staffers about the problems with comments on the site and how to deal with those.)

If you have a proposal, please e-mail me (dfisher@sc.edu). You'll probably hear back from Brad Petit, the day-to-day editor, who will work out details with you.

Thanks,
Doug Fisher
Executive Editor

Five more years!

Community Journalism Interest Group successfully "passed" its assessment by the AEJMC folks and you can now consider us part of the "permanent" landscape at AEJ. Here's what they said we should spend some time on:

• Define clearly what "community journalism" is. We may know it, but that doesn't mean everyone else in journalism and mass comm education does. We need a slogan, a label, so we can ....
• Get the word out about community journalism. In other words, market our IG. If community journalism is the hot trend, well, what are we doing to capitalize on that? And how are we letting the world know?
• Spend less time worrying about the number of research papers, and figure out what research we want to focus on. Perhaps it's in teaching, perhaps it's in public service (working with communities and news professionals). Focus our call for papers on a topic or 2.
• Make sure we document our activities beyond the convention .... national meetings we're part of, booklets we put together, etc.
• Understand that a lot of our diverse membership can come from our work with professionals (outside AEJ membership lists).
• Keep building the blog. Folks loved it.

Covering Communties

Peggy Kuhr, new dean at Montana and immediate past COMJIG chairwoman, has officially announced the launch of Covering Communities (coveringcommunities.org). The site is full of helpful tools and other information designed to help journalists understand how to recognize the varied communities in their areas -- and not just rural areas -- and how to broaden and deepen the coverage.

A link is in our permanent link roll.